


Los Desconocidos

by aguantare



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5259026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wars that drive kids to flee to El Norte are often personal, rather than global. But that doesn't make them any less of a battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult fic I think I’ve ever written. It is certainly the most personal. I work in immigration in the U.S. I work with kids who have come across the border alone, and refugees, and torture survivors, and immigrants in detention. In the political rhetoric surrounding immigration, I think the human stories often get lost. This fic is very much an attempt on my part to humanize the issue, and draw attention to what people are fleeing, and what they’re willing to go through to escape. 
> 
> Although I have substantially altered names, details and locations to protect confidentiality, **every incident in this fic, even some of the most grievous and egregious abuse, comes from the stories of the people I’ve worked with.**
> 
> “Los Desconocidos” comes from one of the names of the network of freight trains that people use to travel north through Mexico—it is known as La Bestia (the Beast), El Tren de la Muerte (The Train of Death), and El Tren de los Desconocidos (The Train of the Unknowns).
> 
> Disclaimer: don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me.

_Cúcuta, Colombia_

The metallic thud of a ball caroming off the goalpost echoes across a worn football pitch in Barrio San Marcos, followed by a curse, then laughter. 

“That’s 7 out of 10 that you’ve missed,” sixteen-year-old James says from his vantage point near the top of the 18 yard box, “I thought you said you had a 100% accuracy rate.”

“Fuck you,” David groans, lining up another shot, “I’m having a bad day.”

Football practice has been over for almost an hour, but James likes to stay after, especially on long late summer days like this, when it stays light until well into the evening, and his parents don’t get on his case for being out after dark. These days, David almost always stays after with him.

For as long as James can remember, it’s been him and David. Their parents live on the same block here on the outskirts of Cúcuta, and they’ve grown up going to school and church together, and playing football on the same teams. David is about 6 months older than James, and he never misses an opportunity to remind James about it. 

But when some of the older boys started hassling James for money last year, it was David who stepped in and made them back off. When James got cut from the selection-only football team in their neighborhood, it was David who came to his house and convinced him to give it another try. 

And when the graffiti started appearing on doors and walls in their neighborhood—the stylized black eagles, the ‘AN’ for ‘Aguilas Negras’—and the evenings brought gunfire and the mornings brought bodies, it was David who James’ parents told him to go everywhere with, to never be without. James wonders if David’s parents told him the same thing, because David has never questioned his requests to walk home together, or to wait after school for him so they can take the bus together. 

Another shot spins just wide of the goal.

“ _Pata chueca_!” James exclaims. David kicks a ball at him, hits him in the back hard enough for James to roll over onto the pitch in not entirely feigned discomfort. 

“You’re such a dick,” he says as David walks over and nudges at him with the toe of his boot. 

“Yeah, you love me,” David responds, offering a hand up. “We should get going. Sun’s going down.” 

-

_Sao Paulo, Brazil_

“So we gave you some time to think about it,” the man standing over him says, “Did you make a decision?”

“No,” fifteen-year-old Neymar replies. The three of them—Elias, Gustavo and Luiz--have got him cornered, and Neymar knows what’s going to happen, but he’s still hoping maybe he can stall them, buy himself some more time. 

“That’s too bad,” Elias says, frowning, “I told you we would ask nicely first, but then…” He shrugs, letting the sentence hang. Neymar doesn’t say anything more; there’s nothing he can say. 

Six months ago, he would have laughed if someone had told him that Elias would be the Zeta Cartel’s prime enforcer in their corner of Favela de Alba. Elias had grown up about six doors down from Neymar and his family. He was a few years older, and he was always a goof-off, never paid attention in school or Sunday school. He ended up having to repeat seventh grade, but around here that wasn’t exactly uncommon. He got in trouble for things like blowing spitballs in class or stealing someone’s pencils, but he wasn’t ever mean. 

And yet now here he is, a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, a large ‘Z’ tattooed into the side of his neck, and a slew of beatings and shootings to his name. His sole job is to recruit kids like Neymar into running drugs for the cartel. It starts with small stuff—taking packages from one end of the favela to the other, and then, before you know it, you’re shuttling pounds of product across transnational borders, hefting AK-47s on your shoulder to fend off rival cartels and federal police.

Neymar knows it’s good money, and he won’t pretend he hasn’t thought about it; with that kind of income he could take care of his parents, help them move up and out of here. But deep down, he knows the only place that path ends up is an early grave. And he knows he’s better than that, knows he could never live with himself if he acquiesced to doing that kind of thing.

“You’re sure you haven’t made a decision?” Elias asks. Neymar eyes the rings on his fingers, knows the damage they’ll inflict.

“I’ve decided I want you to leave me alone,” he says. Elias laughs a little, pats Neymar’s cheek like he’s a child. 

“Okay, then,” he says. 

Gustavo hits him first, punching him with a closed fist in the side of the head. Neymar’s vision scatters, and before he can regain his balance, Luiz grabs his arms and pulls them behind his back. Elias grabs a fistful of his hair, yanks his head up so Neymar has to look at him. 

“Sorry, _mano_ ,” he says, almost genuine, “You brought this on yourself.” 

-

_Rio de Janeiro, Brazil_

“Where the hell have you been?” 

Philippe isn’t quite fifteen years old yet, but he already knows the stench of alcohol, can smell it from across the room of the small, two-bedroom shanty they call home. His uncle Paolo sways a little as he gets to his feet. 

“Where the hell have you been?” he repeats, louder. He takes a few steps towards Philippe. Leandro puts a hand on Philippe’s shoulder, positions himself between his brother and their uncle. He’s only seventeen, but he’s bigger than Philippe, more imposing. 

“We had dinner,” Leandro replies.

“I told you to come straight home,” Paolo snaps, “And I don’t give you money to waste on fancy restaurant food.” He’s advanced across the room, and he’s close enough now that Philippe can see his bloodshot eyes. 

“Well?” Paolo shouts when Leandro doesn’t respond. 

There’s a short moment of silence. Then Paolo grabs Leandro by the front of his shirt, shoves him back against the wall. 

“You answer me when I ask you a question!” he yells. He draws back a fist and belts Leandro across the mouth. Philippe is frozen, caught between wanting to run away and wanting to help his brother. Paolo rears back and hits Leandro again, this time in the gut. Leandro makes a gasping, winded sound, and Philippe unfreezes, grabs at his uncle’s shoulder, yells at him to stop. 

Next thing he knows he’s sprawled on the floor, the whole right side of his face bursting with pain. Before he can even get his hands up to his face, Paolo’s foot slams into his ribs and he doubles up.

“Jesus, leave him alone, he’s just a kid—“ Philippe senses more than sees the struggle above him. There’s the sound of a door being opened, and the distinct thud of a body hitting the deck. A heavy hand lands on Philippe’s back, arms pick him up, and then he’s being half-dragged, half-carried across the room. Cool air hits his face the second before he’s dropped on a hard, unforgiving surface. Somewhere above him, a door slams shut. 

Silence. Gradually, Philippe becomes aware of sounds around him—night noises: a dog barking, a car horn off in the distance, music from a neighbor’s stereo. 

“ _Maninho_. Hey.” Gentle hands on his back, turning him over. He whimpers before he can stop himself. 

“Where does it hurt?” Leandro asks. The front light over the deck is still on, and Philippe can see the bloody split in his brother’s upper lip and the swollen redness around one eye that foreshadows an ugly shiner. 

“I’m okay,” he says, even though he’s not sure it’s true. Leandro takes Philippe’s chin in his hand, turns his face toward the light. Clenches his jaw at whatever he sees. 

“Come on,” he says, standing up, “We need to find a place to stay.” He offers a hand, and Philippe takes it, bites down another grunt of pain as Leandro pulls him to his feet. 

As they reach the end of the block, Leandro puts an arm around Philippe’s shoulders, presses a kiss to the top of his head. This isn’t the first time, or even the second, or fifth time that this has happened, and Philippe doesn’t need to look up to know that his brother is crying. 

-

_Cúcuta, Colombia_

“Look. Watch, watch this, watch this.” Crowded into the back of the bus on the way to school in Cúcuta, James hooks his chin over his best friend’s shoulder so he can watch the video on David’s cell phone screen. 

“Wow,” James says as the video finishes, “Golazo, no?” 

“You should give me a cross like that on Saturday so I can recreate it,” David says, shoving his phone back in his pocket. 

“ _Pata chueca, tú_ ,” James teases, “I could lay that out on a platter for you and you’d miss it.”

“What are you talking about?” David retorts, elbowing James lightly in the ribs, “I’d bury that, no sweat.”

James snorts. David elbows him again, harder, and James doubles over theatrically.

“Ay,” he moans, staggering against David as the bus rolls to a halt in front of their secondary school, “Red card ref, did you see what he did?”

“Such a drama queen,” David grumbles, feigning exasperation. They get off the bus and head for the front door, one of David’s arms wrapped around James’ neck in a loose headlock. 

-

Later that day, after practice, he and David practice the crossing pattern they saw on the video, running it again and again until they get it right, the ball curling perfectly off James’ right foot into David’s path for him to volley home. 

David whoops as the shot hits the back of the net and runs toward James, jumps into his arms and topples them to the ground. 

“Uff, you need to lay off the empanadas,” James grumbles, a little winded.

“You try saying no to my mom’s empanadas,” David replies, rolling onto his back so he and James are lying side by side. 

“Mm, good point.” 

They lay there in silence for a bit, just watching the sky turn golden as the sun sets. 

“Hey.” David nudges James’ foot with his own. “My parents are thinking about sending me to Cali.”

James closes his eyes, not surprised. 

“You have family there?” he asks.

“Yeah. Aunt and uncle.”

James opens his eyes, turns his head to look at David.

“It’s a little bit safer there,” he acknowledges. David huffs out a breath.

“Yeah,” he agrees, pushing into a sitting position, “Won’t be the same though.” He looks up at the sky again, and gets to his feet, offers James a hand up.

“Getting late. We should go.”

-

The walk home is fifteen minutes, maybe twenty if they dawdle. The character of these streets has changed, but James still knows them like the back of his hand. And maybe that’s why he ends up not paying enough attention.

They’re talking about the tournament next weekend, the teams they’ll be going up against, when James registers the sound of an engine and wheels crunching on uneven pavement behind them. It’s a little uncommon, especially at this hour of the evening, but not so strange that he feels the need to turn around and look. 

David is saying something about some snooty Bogota boys getting what’s coming to them when James catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He whips his head around at the same time as the crack of gunfire reaches his ears, familiar, but never this close before. 

Instinct sends him diving for the ground, fear-induced adrenaline flooding his veins. He hears four, five more shots, then screeching tires, and when he looks up again, the car is gone, the street eerily silent. 

“Son of a bitch,” he breathes into the sudden quiet, “David, are you—“ 

He turns his head, and the words die in his throat.

David is lying on the sidewalk next to him, dark red blossoming across the front of his white practice jersey from three separate points. He lifts his head a few inches to look down at his chest, then lays back again. James goes to his knees beside him, tears off his own jersey and presses it against David’s chest. David coughs, then chokes on a mouthful of blood. He reaches out with one hand, scrabbles feebly at James’ arm. James grabs the hand with his own, squeezes hard, like maybe he can hold David back from the edge for just a little bit longer. 

“I’ll call for help, okay?” he says, even as he realizes the shirt he’s holding against David’s torso is already soaked through with blood, “I’m going to—I’ll call—“ He falters as David’s eyes roll upwards, fixing on a point that James can’t see.

“David,” he says helplessly, “David.” 

There’s no answer. 

-

_Rio de Janeiro, Brazil_

“Cris. It’s me.”

It’s 3AM, and Philippe is sitting in all-night café with Leandro, an ice pack held against his cheek and a cup of coffee in front of him. He can’t hear his oldest brother’s voice over the phone, but Leandro’s tone of voice tells him a lot.

“Yeah,” Leandro is saying, looking down at the table, “Bad.”

Pause.

“Drunk. High, too, maybe. You never know with him.”

Leandro takes a sip of the coffee, offers the cup to Philippe, who takes it, gulps down a comfortingly warm mouthful. 

“Yeah.” Leandro flicks his eyes up to Philippe, and Philippe knows they’re talking about him. He imagines Cris, on his break from his job in Fortaleza, smoking a cigarette and looking out over the harbor where he works.

“He’s alright,” Leandro says, “I mean. Here. Talk to him.” He hands the phone over. 

“Philippe?” The fact that Cris uses his full name tells Philippe he’s concerned.

“I’m fine,” Philippe says. 

“Did he hit you?” Cris asks. He sounds like he already knows the answer. 

“Just a couple times,” Philippe replies. Across the table, Leandro shakes his head, looks away. 

“He was beating up on Leandro,” Philippe adds, “I was trying to get him to stop.”

Cris sighs.

“I know, _maninho_. It’s not your fault, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

Cris is quiet for a few moments.

“Leandro and I are going to try and figure out a way to get you out of there, okay?” he says eventually.

“Cris—“

“It’s not safe for you to stay there.”

Philippe looks down at the coffee cup in his hands, knows his brother is right. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“Can I talk to Leandro again?”

“Yeah.”

-

_Cúcuta, Colombia_

The funeral is small, only family and a handful of friends. James wears a suit, but regrets it, wishes he’d worn his football jersey instead, because he and David both hated suits, no matter the occasion. 

He has to do a scripture reading. One of the Psalms. God is our refuge and strength. James doesn’t want to be reading it. He wants to talk about David instead, wants to talk about how amazing of a footballer he was, how amazing of a friend he was. He doesn’t want them to think of David as just one more number, one more dead kid in the streets of the barrio. His life was worth something. It has to have been. 

He gets through the reading. Barely. As he steps down from the pulpit and makes his way back to his seat, he has to walk by David’s casket. He pauses briefly in front of it. Lays a hand on the simple wooden box that holds what used to be his best friend. Crosses himself, presses his crossed thumb and forefinger hard to his lips, like maybe that’ll hold back the dam inside him that’s about to break.

He holds it together until he gets back to his seat. His father rests a gentle hand at the back of his neck. It’s only then that he presses his face into his hands and cries. 

-

When he and his parents get back home, there’s an unfamiliar car sitting on the street outside their house. At about twenty feet away, James gets a good look at who’s inside, and his blood runs cold. Mareros. Gang members. Shaved heads. White t-shirts. Tattoos. 

They’re looking straight at him. Not even bothering to try and hide it. 

“Mamá, let’s go to the store,” he says, “All of us.” 

His parents both look at him, then follow his eyes to the car. His father straightens a little, shifts his position so that both James and his mother are on the side of the sidewalk furthest away from the car. 

Before they walk more than few steps, the car starts up. James feels frozen in place, his mind flashing back to the night David got shot. He has no doubt that these are the same guys who killed David that night, and now they’re back to get rid of him, to cover their tracks, to make sure no one stays alive who could talk. 

The car rolls by them, slow enough that James can see the mareros inside eyeballing him hard. They don’t say anything, don’t throw up a sign, but they don’t need to. Everyone knows who they are.

After a few agonizing seconds, the car accelerates down the street, screeches around the corner, and is gone. 

James looks at his parents. They both look terrified, and for some reason, he feels like he needs to apologize. 

His father ushers them inside. Locks the doors. Draws the blinds. Tells them not to answer the door for anyone. He disappears out to the shed in the back of the house. James doesn’t need to be told why he’s going out there; he knows that that’s where his father keeps his gun. 

-

Three, then four days pass. James goes to school without incident. His parents go to and from work with no trouble. On the night of the fifth day, James is just about to doze off when he hears the sound of a car pulling up outside the house. 

The sound of a car door opening. James opens his eyes. It’s too late for visitors.

The window by his head explodes inward. Shards of glass rain down around him as he throws himself out of bed and onto the ground, hands over his head. Something thuds onto the ground next to him, and he flinches, expecting the next—and last—thing he sees to be the flash-bang of a grenade. The Black Eagles prefer such ordinance for home hits. 

When five, six seconds have passed and the world hasn’t detonated around him, he cautiously uncurls, looks around the still darkened room. 

A knock at the door makes him jump, but it’s just his parents. They bustle into the room as James picks up the brick on the floor next to him, unwraps the piece of paper attached to it with a rubber band. The first thing he sees, even before he reads it, is the stylized black eagle drawn on one side. On the other side are three words.

_Ver. Oír. Callar._

Look. Listen. Shut up. Below the words are three skulls. 

-

_Sao Paulo, Brazil_

It’s two and a half days before Neymar feels well enough to get out of bed. His ribs still ache as he moves gingerly to the bathroom, but breathing is easier, and he can almost straighten all the way up. 

In the mirror, he examines the purple bruises mottling both his cheeks and the swelling around his left eye, the scabbed-over gash across his right temple, and the other one marring his jawline. He pokes at the scab on his temple, hisses a little at the sting of pain. Wonders if it’s going to leave a scar. 

Wonders, too, if he’ll live long enough to see that scar. 

The thing is, he knows Elias and his boys could have killed him. If they had wanted him dead, he would be dead already, a bullet in his brain and a Z carved into his forehead or maybe his chest as a warning to anyone else who was thinking about defying them. 

But they didn’t kill him. Not yet, anyways. If he says no to them again, he’s pretty sure they’ll kill him then.

Neymar goes back to his room. Digs his football out from under his bed, goes out into the alley behind the house and bounces the ball against the wall, catches it on his thigh, then his instep, back up to his thigh and back down again. The rhythm of it helps him collect his thoughts.

When his mother calls him in for dinner, he tucks the football under his arm and goes back inside, his mind made up.


	2. Chapter 2

_Cúcuta, Colombia_

James’ parents think he’s asleep, but the walls in their house are thin. 

“Ten thousand U.S. dollars, just to get him to Mexico,” his mother says, “Then another ten to get him across Mexico and into the U.S.”

“We don’t have that kind of money,” his father replies gently.

“He can’t stay here.”

“It’s dangerous. He’s just a child.”

“At least a guide will be with him. Better than going on his own. And you know what will happen if he stays.”

Pause. 

“We can borrow the money. If a debt is the price I have to pay to make sure he’s safe, then I’ll do it.”

“He won’t be safe, _cariña_ , not even if he reaches the U.S.”

“But he’ll be safer than he is here. You saw what they threw in the window. You know what that means. We can’t protect him.”

Another pause. When his mother speaks again, her voice is strained.

“I would rather that I never be able to see him again in person, than to come home one day and find him dead on the doorstep.”

James turns his face into his pillow, breathes deep until the urge to cry passes.

-

_Sao Paulo, Brazil_

The bruises on his face and ribs are still dark and painful when Neymar finally goes back to school. It doesn’t escape his notice that three other boys in his class are also sporting bruises, and they all live on the same block as him. 

They don’t talk about it though. What would they say?

Per his parents’ instructions, he takes a different route home from school. It takes him almost twice as long to get there, but he gets to his block, turns down the alley off the main road—

And sees Elias and Gustavo loitering outside the gate. They look up, spot him, and Neymar turns to run, but he already knows they’re going to catch him—they’re older than him, taller, stronger, faster. 

He doesn’t even make it back to the main road before Gustavo grabs his backpack and then his shoulder before he can slip out of it. Gustavo shoves him up against a chain link fence, and Elias gets in front of him, forestalls any thoughts Neymar might have had about fighting back with a 4-inch long knife pressed against the side of Neymar’s neck. 

“So we gave you some more time to think about it,” he says, “Even though we didn’t have to.”

He leans down so his face is close to Neymar’s, the blade still cold and sharp against his skin.

“If you say no, we’re going to pay a visit to your family,” he continues, “And I’m going to make you watch me use this knife on your mom, and your dad, and your sister.”

Neymar looks up at Elias, and then Gustavo, hates them with everything in him. He’s scared of being killed, scared of how much it’ll hurt, but he made his mind up days ago, out in the alley behind the house, and he’s prepared for them to kill him. The problem is, right now it’s not just his life that they’re threatening to take away.

“I don’t want to do that,” Elias says, sounding not at all apologetic, “I like you, you know. But this is serious business.”

Neymar feels the blade press harder into his skin. 

“Fine,” he says, “I’ll do it. Just. Stay away from my family.” 

Elias leers at him for a moment longer. Then Neymar feels the blade lift away from his neck. 

“Tomorrow,” Elias says, “10 AM. Plaza Reunion.”

Neymar nods once. 

-

_Rio de Janeiro, Brazil_

Cris comes home for a weekend. Paolo is on his best behavior, probably because Cris is twenty-two and, courtesy of four years of working hard, manual labor, he’s too big and too strong for Paolo to push around. More to the point, Cris tries to never leave either Philippe or Leandro home alone with Paolo. And he does a pretty good job; Philippe feels the most secure he has in months. 

Cris takes Leandro and him to a bar one afternoon to watch the Real-Barcelona clásico, and it’s almost like the old days, when their parents were still alive, and Cris didn’t have to move away to find work to support them, and Leandro and Philippe weren’t at the mercy of their only surviving relative. 

When they get back home after the game, Paolo is gone. Cris shares a wordless glance with Leandro.

“ _Maninho_ , we need to go out for just a little while,” he says, “We’ll be back in half an hour. An hour at the most.”

Philippe desperately wants them not to go, at least not both of them at the same time, but he tells himself he’s not a baby, he can survive for an hour by himself.

“Okay,” he says. He’s got homework he needs to do; staying in his room has kept him out of his uncle’s path in the past. 

“Okay,” Cris agrees, “See you when we get back.”

-

Philippe is in the middle of an algebra problem set when he hears the front door open, and he can tell by the footsteps that it’s Paolo. He stares down at his papers, suddenly unable to concentrate. Cris and Leandro have been gone almost 25 minutes. They should be home soon. Philippe tries to force himself back to his homework. 

The clank of bottles, followed by sudden, loud dialogue signaling that Paolo’s turned the TV on. Philippe starts to breathe a sigh of relief. If Paolo wanted to come after him, he would have done it before getting a beer and sitting down to watch television. 

A knock at the front door. Paolo answers it, and Philippe hears, “police” and “calls about fights” and “just checking in.” 

A few moments pass, in which Philippe hardly dares to breathe. Then someone knocks on his bedroom door. He goes to open it, and his uncle is standing there, flanked by a police officer in uniform. Paolo, in an amiable tone that Philippe has never heard from him, asks him to come out and answer some questions. Philippe obliges, but he feels trapped, his uncle’s eyes boring into him from across the room, and so when the police ask him if there are any problems in the house, he only hesitates for a second before shaking his head. 

The officers leave after another five minutes or so. Paolo closes the door behind them. The click of the lock is like a gunshot in the silence. Philippe contemplates running, but Paolo is between him and the door. His heart judders a jackhammer beat in his chest. He’s scared. 

“Did you call them?” Paolo asks, closing the distance between them. Philippe shakes his head, backs away until his shoulders hit the refrigerator. 

“Liar,” Paolo hisses. He punctuates it with a backhand that has Philippe’s cheek burning and his ears ringing. 

“I didn’t,” Philippe retorts before he can stop himself. Paolo hits him again, with a closed fist this time. Tears spring to his eyes. Paolo sneers at him. 

“I’ll give you something to cry about,” he says. He grabs Philippe by the front of his shirt, throws him to the floor. Philippe scrambles to his knees as he hears the snick of a belt being undone, gets one foot under himself, and then the first blow falls, metal and leather biting into his back. The sharpness of the pain steals his breath away. Another blow, and another. He feels his skin split. Another. He stumbles to his feet, tries again to get to the door. The belt snaps across the back of his legs and the flash of pain saps all the strength out of his muscles. The floor rushes up to greet him. 

Another blow. And another. He’s losing track. His back feels slick and wet. 

The sound of a door opening. Voices shouting. Curses. Arms lifting him up. Cris’ face looming large in his blurry vision.

“It’s okay, _maninho_ , I’ve got you. It’s okay.” 

-

_Sao Paulo, Brazil_

The same night that Elias puts a knife to his throat, Neymar goes home and packs a bag. Tells his parents that he has to leave. Tells them that they should consider moving, too. Tells them why.

There’s sadness, but no surprise. He’s a teenage male in a struggling district of Sao Paulo. His fate was practically sealed the day he was born. 

His father gives him an envelope filled with cash. Neymar tries to refuse; he knows that the envelope is the money his father has been saving to fix his truck so he can start working independently again. 

“Take it,” his father insists, “You’ll need it.” 

“You need it,” Neymar counters. His father rests an uncharacteristically gentle hand on top of his head. 

“You’ll need it more, _filho_.” 

-

The following morning, he leaves half of the cash on the dining room table, slips out before anyone else is awake, makes his way to the train station in the early morning light. He avoids places he knows Elias and his group tend to hang out, and every time he goes around a corner, he says a quick prayer that he won’t run into one of them. 

He gets on the first train out of Sao Paulo, headed north. They have family in Brasilia, where it might be safer, at least for awhile. 

As the train pulls out of the station, he pulls his baseball cap down over his face so other people won’t see that he’s crying. Deep down, he knows that people like him only go north for one reason. Deep down, he knows he’ll never be coming back. 

-

_Rio de Janeiro, Brazil_

As he and Leandro are tending to the flayed skin on Philippe’s back, Cris tells him that they were meeting with a guy who takes people north to Mexico, and then across the border to the U.S.

“We asked him to take you north, and he agreed,” Cris explains, pressing a cold cloth to a particularly nasty gash on Philippe’s shoulder. Philippe bites the inside of his cheek until the sting eases. 

“What about you and Leandro?” he asks. 

Silence.

“You’re still a kid, _maninho_ ,” Leandro says finally, “You have a chance, okay? You can be someone. But not if you stay here.”

Philippe turns his head, rests his cheek on the pillow so he can look at his brothers, Cris sitting next to his bed and Leandro leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he points out. Cris sighs, leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

“Listen, Philippe,” he says, and he sounds exhausted, “Around here, there are three options for people. You join a gang and get shot before you’re 25. You work yourself to death for a couple hundred reales a month and then you end up crippled or an alcoholic or a drug addict from the stress. Or you get out. Get the hell away from here.”

He looks down at his hands, and when he speaks up again, his voice is just a little gruff.

“If Mom and Dad were here, and they could see what Paolo’s doing to you, and what the future was going to be for you…” he shrugs, looks across at Leandro. 

“They wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” Leandro finishes, “And Cris and I, we don’t want this for you either.”

-

_Cúcuta, Colombia_

James doesn’t let his parents come with him to the train station. Part of it is for their own safety; if they come for him at the station, better that his parents aren’t there. Part of it is because he doesn’t know if he can handle it, saying goodbye in public like that. 

His mother kisses his cheeks. Hangs the crucifix that her grandmother gave her around his neck. Cries and tells him she loves him.

“I’ll be alright, _mami_ ,” he tells her, some part of him feeling like it’s his duty to comfort her, to be stoic, to not be afraid, even though he very much is.

His father hugs him for a long time. Holds his face in his hands, runs his thumbs over his cheeks like he’s trying to memorize his features. 

“ _Que dios te bendiga, hijo_ ,” he says, “I will pray for you, every day.”

There are tears in his eyes, and for some reason, that almost breaks James.

He leaves the only home he’s ever known with a tightness in his chest, a visceral pain in the very core of his being. 

It will be years before that pain even begins to ease.


	3. Chapter 3

_Brasilia, Brazil_

Neymar tags the guy getting on the bus at Avenida Coelho almost instantly. He doesn’t have the baggy jeans, the tattoos or the swagger that the gang members do, but there’s something about him, something that tells Neymar he’s connected to the cartels, or the gangs, or maybe both. 

It’s been three weeks, almost four, since Neymar arrived here in the capital. He’s living with a cousin that he doesn’t really know, but she’s been helpful and sympathetic, given him a phone and gotten him enrolled in school and shown him how to get around the city. The atmosphere here is different—for one, his cousin doesn’t live in a favela--but Neymar exercises the same caution and trusts the same instincts that kept him alive back home, and that’s why he notices this guy right away.

Neymar turns his attention to the window, keeps the guy in his peripheral vision. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, he thinks. 

When he gets off at his stop a few minutes later, the guy follows him. Not a coincidence then. Neymar feels a shot of adrenaline, but also a shot of anger. He turns around, makes eye contact with the guy. Wonders briefly if he’s about to get shot in broad daylight. 

The guy approaches him, gets into his personal space. Lifts his right hand in the all-too-familiar sign of the Zetas. Holds Neymar’s gaze for a long second. Then changes his fingers into the shape of a pistol, points it between Neymar’s eyes and mimes pulling the trigger. 

-

_Cartagena, Colombia_

The boat barely looks seaworthy, but the guide tells James and the three other people in their group that it’ll take them all the way to Guatemala. The guide’s name is Ramiro, and his accent tells James that he’s not Colombian. Maybe Mexican, or Salvadoran. His words are harsh— _cabron_ this, and _chingada_ that—but he seems knowledgeable about the boat, and James tells himself that that’s all that matters, at least at this point in time. 

“Going north?” the man next to him asks as they get settled on the boat.

“Yes.”

“Do you have family there?” the man asks. 

James shakes his head. It’s stupid, but saying it out loud would just make it that much more real, that he is now, truly and utterly alone.

They push off in the pre-dawn darkness, under a light rain. James hugs his backpack to his chest. Watches the Colombian coastline until it disappears from sight. 

-

_Rio de Janeiro, Brazil_

The Galeão International Airport in Rio is the biggest, cleanest place Philippe has ever been. Light streams through gigantic, plate-glass windows in the ceiling. People move in each and every direction. Foreign languages swirl through the air around him. Under the tide of anxiety that’s been rising in his chest ever since he left the house, Philippe feels a sense of wonder. It’s one thing to know that the world is a bigger place than the four or five block radius around his home; it’s another thing entirely to actually experience it.

There’s a girl about his age sitting across from him at the gate. Her clothes give her away as an American, and the smart phone in her hands tells Philippe that she, or her family, probably have more money than he’s ever had in his entire life. He doesn’t resent her, not really, but he wonders what her life is like, wonders if she lives in a big house like he’s seen in movies, with her own room and a grassy front yard. He tries to imagine what that would like, but he has no point of reference, can’t even picture what a city or a street in the United States looks like, much less a home. 

The girl looks up suddenly, catches Philippe’s eye. She hesitates for a second, but then she smiles, and Philippe offers a half smile back. 

A body slides into the seat next to Philippe. He glances sideways, and sees that it’s his guide, Francisco. Philippe doesn’t think that’s his actual name, but so far he’s been amiable, and Philippe figures his brothers trust him or else they wouldn’t have hired him to take him north. He’s a stocky, well-built man in his late 30s, maybe early 40s. When Philippe had first met him, he had been dressed in old jeans and a t-shirt, but now he’s exchanged those for dark trousers and a polo shirt. He’d bought Philippe similar clothes to wear on the plane. Less chance of getting stopped, he said, if you didn’t look like you’d just stepped out of the favelas. 

“Boarding pass,” Francisco says, handing over a piece of paper. The name on it—Gabriel Rocha da Monteiro--matches the expertly forged Brazilian passport in Philippe’s hand. The designated destination is Guatemala City. 

“Customs in Guatemala City is a joke,” Francisco had explained earlier in the day, “They barely check anyone, whereas in Honduras or El Salvador, they’re much more thorough.” It was the same reason, he had explained, why he wasn’t risking a direct flight into the U.S. with fake papers. 

“Is there still a chance they’ll catch me?” Philippe had asked. 

“Minimal,” Francisco had assured him. 

Philippe tucks the boarding pass into his passport, still thinking about that conversation. He’s not entirely clear about what happens if he does get caught, but part of him doesn’t really want to know, so he doesn’t ask. 

-

_Salvador, Brazil_

“It’s about three days to Caracas. One day in port there, then another two days to Cancún.” 

Neymar follows the burly captain of the cargo ship _Maria Angel_ down the stairs into the belly of the ship. His name is Arturo, and he’s a friend of his cousin’s who, after accepting a reasonable, but not overly hefty sum of money, agreed to ferry Neymar all the way to Mexico. 

“You can sleep here,” Arturo says, cranking open a door that leads into a cramped compartment with two bunk beds, “Daniel sleeps here when he’s not on duty, but he’s got the night shift, so you probably won’t see him much.”

Neymar nods.

“Thanks,” he says, and he means it. Bribe or not, this guy is taking a risk by bringing him onboard for a transnational trip. He’s not obligated to do this. 

“Your cousin told me about the Zetas,” Arturo says, motioning to the still-healing injuries on Neymar’s face, “They’re monsters. I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from them any way you can. I’d do the same thing.”

“Yeah. Wish it didn’t have to be this way, but…” Neymar trails off and shrugs. Arturo nods his understanding, drums his knuckles on the door. 

“Hang out down here until you hear the engines rev up,” he says, “We’ll probably get a pre-departure check by the Coast Guard, but they never come down below decks.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

Arturo lingers in the doorway for a few more seconds.

“Get some rest,” he says eventually, “I have this feeling you’re going to need it.”

-

_Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Panama_

The low growl of the boat motor and the lapping of waves at the hull are soothing, in their way, and the air is pleasantly cool, almost perfect for sleeping. James tucks his hands behind his head and looks up at the endless expanse of sky above them, the ink black studded with diamond-white stars. He’s not sure he really believes in Heaven or Hell, regardless of everything he’s been told in church, but it comforts him to think that maybe somewhere up there, David is looking out for him. 

James feels restless and exhausted at the same time. He closes his eyes. 

Wonders if he’ll open them again.

-

_La Guaira, Caracas, Venezuela_

Sunrises are really all the same, but leaning against the ship’s railing and watching the sun come up over the port of Venezuela’s capital, Neymar imagines that it looks different here, somehow. Maybe it’s the unfamiliar skyline, or the air, which feels cleaner and less dense than in Sao Paulo.

He looks down at the water, thinks about his parents and his sister. Wonders if they’ve moved yet. Hopes so, even though he knows it would be a massive expense for them. He thinks about his father, his hands already starting to knot and curl with arthritis, and his mother, constantly in pain from working on her feet all day. 

If he makes it to the U.S., he decides, he’ll take whatever job he can find. Work his fingers to the bone if he has to. Send his parents every cent that he can. Keep only the bare minimum for himself. If he can’t be with them, the very, very least he can do is make sure they can live a little more comfortably.

The sun is breaking the horizon line now, a blurry yellow disc that promises a warm day. Neymar watches it inching up into the sky, and thinks that maybe the sunrise looks different here because he himself has changed. 

-

_AeroRepública Flight 477_

Philippe leans his forehead against the bulkhead, watches the landscape slide past thousands of feet below. They’re over Panama, or maybe Costa Rica, and there are towns interspersed with farmland, long strips of green and brown, bisected by winding roads.

He thinks about the lives being lived out on those roads, in those fields, under the roofs of those houses, and he’s hit with an almost overpowering wave of nostalgia, a longing for the comfort and familiarity of home—his real home, with his parents, and the cozy living room and the tiny patio and the room he shared with Leandro and Cris, which Philippe didn’t mind because it made him feel safe to have both of them there with him. Pictures of footballers torn out of old magazines hung up on their walls, their mother constantly telling them to stop putting tape on the walls because it was ruining the paint—

Philippe closes his eyes, forces himself not to think about that anymore. It’s past, it’s gone, and he can never go back. This is his reality now. Whatever ‘this’ is.


	4. Chapter 4

_Interstate Highway 1, Department of San Marcos, Guatemala_

“Hey.” Philippe gets cuffed none-too-gently around the head. “Don’t fall asleep. If you get left behind, I don’t get paid.”

The _coyote_ * that Francisco passed him off to in Guatemala City moves away, and Philippe rubs his aching ankles, tries not to get too comfortable on the grassy roadside slope that he and the rest of his traveling companions are sitting on. 

It’s been nearly four days since he got anything remotely resembling a decent night’s sleep. Getting through customs in Guatemala City had been the easy part; he’d barely gotten a second glance from the officer. The hard part had started once they left the city. Now his entire body hurts, from walking for miles upon miles, from being jostled around the backs of flatbed trucks, from hunger, from fatigue. A glance at the other people in the group tells him he’s not the only one feeling the effects.

There are nine of them in total. Philippe is the youngest by almost ten years. Some of them are from El Salvador, others from Honduras, and two from Ecuador. At one point, there was also a man from Nicaragua, but somewhere along the way, he disappeared. 

Because of that, Philippe takes the threat of being left behind seriously.

They’re all going to the U.S. Philippe doesn’t really talk to them much, worried that his accent will give him away, make him even more of a target than he already probably is. But they talk amongst themselves, and Philippe understands far more Spanish than he speaks. 

“We’ll cross the river after dark,” the _coyote_ says, “There are lots of patrols on the Mexican side of the border, so keep your mouths shut until I tell you otherwise. No cigarettes, nothing. Got it?”

Philippe nods along with the rest of the group. He doesn’t like the _coyote_ , and he has trouble understanding his Spanish sometimes, but so far the man has managed to keep them from getting caught, and he hasn’t handed them over to any of the gangs. 

Philippe supposes that’s what counts for trust in these circumstances.

_Near La Mesilla, Department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala_

A day ago, James’ guide went in to Mesilla for supplies and didn’t return. Six hours ago, he ran out of water. One hour ago, one of the blisters on his left heel started bleeding. 

Now there’s a machete poking his chest and three men with MS-13 tattoos covering their faces rifling through his backpack. 

“Take off your shoes,” the man with the machete says. James complies, because what else is he going to do. They immediately find the two hundred dollars stuffed into the toe of his left shoe. 

“What else do you have?” one of the others asks, turning his backpack upside down. James watches a few papers, including his birth certificate, flutter to the rain-dampened ground.

“I—“ He doesn’t get his answer out fast enough. Someone hits him in the side of the head with something too hard to be a fist. He staggers, presses a hand to the point of impact. Feels wetness underneath his fingertips, trickling down his neck.

“I don’t have anything else,” he mumbles, knowing it won’t make a difference. 

A hand scrabbles at his throat, gets hold of his mother’s crucifix and rips it from his neck. James reacts instinctively, grabs for it. They can have everything else, he thinks fiercely, but not that. 

He gets hit again, this time in the face, and he goes down. Then they kick him the ribs twice, three times. As he’s lying there, gasping for breath, the crucifix gets tossed onto the ground in front of him. 

“God won’t protect you here,” one of them says. A boot-clad heel grinds the crucifix into the dirt. 

And then they’re gone. 

-

_Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico_

It’s not hard to find the train tracks in Arriaga; all Neymar has to do is follow the stream of people that look like he feels—tired, worn down, disoriented. 

Arturo sent him on his way from Cancun with bottles of water and what food he could spare from the ship’s galley. Neymar lived on bare bones rations as he bounced between trains, pick up trucks, and walking on the side of the road, and he made it last most of the way, but now it’s been almost a day and a half since he ate anything of substance, he’s down to half a bottle of water, and he can feel the fatigue setting in. 

The train north actually stops here, so people are able to wait at the station itself. Neymar guesses there must be hundreds. It’s late afternoon, and lots of people are lying down, hats or t-shirts over their faces to catch some rest, but there’s an underlying tension in the air. 

A woman with a toddler on her arm steps past Neymar with a jug of water in her free hand.

“ _Disculpe, señora_ ,” he says in his best, most polite Spanish, not wanting to scare her, “Do you know—“

“The next train?” she finishes, stopping to size him up. Neymar nods.

“No one knows,” she says, “There’s no schedule.”

“How long have you been waiting?” he asks.

“Two days. Most people say we will have to wait at least one more.”

Neymar nods again. 

“Okay. _Gracias_.”

She walks away, and after a few seconds of surveying the area, Neymar decides to head back into town to look for water, and maybe food. 

-

_Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico_

Philippe shivers in the cool night air. His clothes are soaked through, courtesy of the raft they were using to cross the river springing a leak halfway across. The documents he had with him are ruined as well, although he doesn’t have much energy to care about that right now.

Seven of them made it to the Mexican side of the river. The _coyote_ doesn’t seem to care, and Philippe wonders if the two who didn’t make it had already paid their fee in full. Francisco had told him, while they were on the plane to Guatemala, that the reason he only paid the _coyotes_ half before the trip, and the other half after they made it to the U.S. was because it made the _coyotes_ more inclined to look after the relative safety of the person they were bringing across the border.

“Hey.” The _coyote_ looms over Philippe. “You, come with me.”

Philippe isn’t sure what the man wants, but he starts to get to his feet. One of the older Salvadoran men gently grasps his arm. 

“Don’t go with him,” he says, looking at the _coyote_. 

“Fuck off, _abuelo_ ,” the _coyote_ spits, “Come on. Right now.” He grabs the collar of Philippe’s shirt as if to drag him to his feet, and that galvanizes the Salvadoran man into action. He’s on his feet in a flash and charging at the _coyote_. Philippe sees a glint of metal, and the _coyote_ freezes. The Salvadoran man has a small, but wicked-looking knife right against the _coyote_ ’s ribs. He growls something in Spanish that Philippe doesn’t quite catch—something about a war, and about killing. 

And then, as quickly as it all happens, it’s over. The _coyote_ raises his hands in surrender, the knife goes away, and the Salvadoran man comes back to sit down next to Philippe. 

“Don’t ever be alone with him,” he tells Philippe, watching the _coyote_ stalk away after telling them to stay put. 

“Why?” 

“Just don’t be alone with him.”

-

_Comitán de Dominguez, Chiapas, Mexico_

The room is open-air, with a doorway opening onto the church courtyard. A crucifix hangs in one corner; a sink and a table with medical supplies stands in the other. James is sitting in a chair next to the sink, and Sister Cecilia clicks her tongue as she sponges away the dried blood on James’ head and neck with a wet rag.

“ _Ay, niño_ ,” she murmurs while she works, “ _Que dios te bendiga_.”

James bites the inside of his cheek, hearing the echo of his father’s blessing in the good sister’s words. He fingers the dirt-crusted, but miraculously unbroken crucifix in his pocket, has to swallow the lump in his throat.

“How old are you?” the sister asks. 

“Sixteen.”

“You’re going north?”

“Yes.”

The strong smell of antiseptic fills the room. James winces a little at the sting that the medicine produces, but wouldn’t even think of complaining. It was Sister Cecilia, in full habit and driving an old beat-up van, who had found him staggering on the side of the road, half a mile into Mexico, and, after stopping to give him some water, offered to bring him to her church to get fed and cleaned up. 

“Will you try and go on _la bestia_?” she asks, carefully taping a bandage over the now-clean cut just behind his right temple. 

“The train?” James asks in reply. They don’t call it _la bestia_ in Colombia; it’s only once he got to Guatemala that he started hearing the train to the U.S. being referred to as such. 

“Yes.”

James nods. Sister Cecilia dabs at the blood stain on the collar of his shirt, frowning a little. 

“Why do they call it _la bestia_?” he asks. Sister Cecilia sighs, turns to throw away the used rags and towels. 

“Because—“

Movement at the doorway. James glances over. A boy about his age is standing there. He’s on crutches, and where his right foot should be, there’s a rounded stump, bandaged in white. 

“ _Hola_ ,” he says to James, then to Sister Cecilia, “The bread delivery is here.”

“Okay, thank you.” The boy disappears from the doorway. 

“That’s Manuel,” Sister Cecilia says by way of explanation, moving to wash her hands at the sink, “He’s 17. He fell off the train here in Comitán.”

James listens to the creak of Manuel’s crutches fade away down the hallway. 

“He landed on the tracks, and the train cut off his right leg,” Sister Cecilia continues. 

She pauses, then concludes, more quietly, “That’s why they call it _la bestia_.”

-

_Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico_

The sun is just coming up when the delivery truck that the coyote stole in Tapachula by bribing a police officer to look the other way rolls to a halt. There are some small windows in the back of the truck, but even with what he can see, Philippe has no idea where they are. 

The back door opens and the _coyote_ beckons for them all to get out. They’re in a town, on a quiet street lined with storefronts. No one is around at the moment, but judging by the angle of the sun, someone almost certainly will be soon. 

“The doors here will open in about half an hour,” the _coyote_ says, pointing to the building behind them. Philippe looks up at the sign, which reads _Casa del Migrante_. The _coyote_ tells them to stay put, and turns to head for a supermarket about two blocks down the road that’s already open. 

“Wonder if we’ll see him again,” one of the Salvadorans mutters. 

“He’s a _pendejo_ ,” the other Salvadoran grumbles, and Philippe manages a half smile at that. 

Twenty minutes later, though, the _coyote_ returns. He passes around glass bottles of Coke, already opened. Philippe gets the last one. 

“Drink up,” the _coyote_ says, and it’s not exactly kind, but it’s not the harsh, obscenity-laden command that the rest of his communications have been. Philippe obeys, and the first sip of sweet, sugary carbonation is astonishingly good. 

He drinks half the bottle, but instead of feeling more alert, he starts to feel inescapably drowsy. It sort of feels like he’s drunk, and he looks at the bottle, wonders if maybe there was alcohol in it, but that doesn’t make any sense. 

He knows he’ll get yelled at, or maybe left behind if he falls asleep, but he’s being pulled inexorably toward unconsciousness all the same, rational mind be damned. He bunches his sweatshirt up under his head, tells himself he’ll just close his eyes for a few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * ["Coyote"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_smuggling#Coyotes) is the term for people who smuggle people across the U.S.-Mexico border.


	5. Chapter 5

_Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico_

A priest at the Santa Marianita Catholic Church where Neymar spends the night tells Neymar that there’s a shelter for migrants about a mile away. He draws a map on the back of a napkin, including street names. That’s how Neymar knows it’s right on the corner of Avenida Independencia and Calle 6 that he sees the truck slow down, the back doors open, and a body get pushed out. It’s still early, and Neymar looks up and down the street, but there’s no one else around. Part of him says to just keep walking, don’t stop, don’t get involved in something that doesn’t involve him. 

But part of him thinks—knows—that body could just as easily be him. And he hopes that if it were, someone would care enough to at least check on him. 

-

Philippe wakes up to someone moving him around, lifting up his arms, then his legs, pulling something over him. 

Something isn’t right, but he doesn’t know what. 

“Fuck,” a male voice mutters, “What did they do to you, _mano_.” Philippe forces his eyes open, sees an unfamiliar face above him. 

“What—“ The dryness in his throat stops his words short, makes him cough instead. A hand lifts his head up and he feels a plastic rim against his lips.

“Drink,” the person above him says. Philippe wants to, so badly, but even in his half-conscious state, his instincts kick in.

“Who are you?” he rasps, coughing again. A moment later he realizes he’s spoken in Portuguese, which he’s tried to avoid on this journey, lest it make him even more of a target than he already is. 

“Are you Brazilian?” the man holding his head up asks, also in Portuguese. Philippe is too tired to try and cover his tracks.

“Yeah.” He gives in, takes a sip from the bottle against his lips. It’s water, and with the very first swallow, Philippe already feels more awake. 

“Who are you?” he asks again. The boy above him looks a little older than him, but not by much. 

“You can call me Silva,” the boy says, “And you?”

“Carlos,” Philippe responds, using his father’s middle name. Silva looks like he doesn’t believe him, but then Philippe doesn’t believe his name is Silva either. 

“What happen—“ He starts to sit up, and pain lances through his body. The core of its location in his body is unmistakable. He looks down, sees that he’s half-dressed, in trousers that aren’t his, and an unbuttoned shirt that’s a size too big for him. When he looks back up, Silva has his lips pressed together and is looking away. Realization floods him in a cold rush. 

“Fuck,” he says. His stomach roils, and he rolls over onto his side, vomits up what little there is in his system. The tears come next.

“Fuck,” he repeats, spitting the word from trembling lips. 

Silva is quiet through all of it, but Philippe can still sense him there, waiting. 

“I know a place,” Silva says eventually, “They offer free food, and free showers too. I can take you there, if you want.”

Philippe doesn’t trust him, but he’s not sure what other options he has. 

-

_Comitán de Dominguez, Chiapas, Mexico_

“Hello?”

James’ throat constricts when he hears his mother’s voice. 

“ _Mami_? It’s me. It’s James.”

“ _Ay, dios mio, mi niño_ , where are you, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, _mami_. I’m in Mexico.”

“Thank god, we’ve been so worried. Here, your father is here.”

She hands the phone off; James can tell it’s because she’s starting to cry.

“ _M’ijo_ , I’m so happy to hear your voice.”

“I’m sorry it took so long to call.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, _papa_ , I’m fine.”

“Is the trip okay? And the guide?”

“Everything is okay, _papa_. Please, try not to worry, okay?”

James hates lying to his parents, but it would do no good to tell them the truth at this point; it would just cause them more stress, more anxiety.

“You’re our son, James. We can only worry.”

“I know, _papa_ , but please. It will be okay.”

“Where in Mexico are you?”

“In the south. Chiapas. I’m at a church. The nuns helped me get a calling card so I could call you.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you’re meeting some good people.”

James’ eyes are stinging. He looks up at the ceiling, trying to hold back the inevitable. 

“Are you going north soon?”

“I—we’re going to Medias Aguas tomorrow, and then we’ll catch the train there.”

“Okay. Be careful, _m’ijo_. I love you.”

James presses the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt against his eyes, feels the dampness soaking through onto his skin. 

“I love you too, _papa_.”

His mother comes back on the line, and whereas she’s regained her composure, James is rapidly losing his. 

“I love you, _m’ijo_ ,” she says. James chokes on a sob, presses his hand over his mouth. He misses them so much. He can barely tell his mother he loves her back. When he hangs up, his knees go out from under him and he slides down with his back against the wall, buries his face in his arms and cries. 

-

_Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico_

The place Silva is talking about is the same _Casa de Migrante_ that Philippe remembers the coyote stopping at. He doesn’t know if that was earlier today, or if a day has already passed. He doesn’t remember anything after stopping at the migrant shelter. The pain in his body tells him something, but it doesn’t tell him the who, why, when, or how. Some part of him thinks that he should be angry, infuriated, but mostly he just feels numb.

Over dinner provided by the shelter, Silva slides a Brazilian ID card onto the table in front of Philippe. It has Silva’s picture on it, and the digital watermark that’s supposed to be fraud-proof. Philippe glances at the ID number and the date of birth, and decides that it probably is in fact legit. 

The full name on the ID is Neymar da Silva Santos Junior. 

“So that’s where Silva came from,” he says around a mouthful of rice. He doesn’t feel hungry, but it’s something to do, and logically, he knows he needs to eat if he wants to keep going. Neymar shrugs, takes the ID back.

“Can’t be too careful,” he says. 

Philippe doesn’t say anything in response; he’s already learned that lesson the hard way.

-

The shelter sets up cots for the night. There isn’t an empty space to be had. Philippe puts his now-dry backpack on a cot, watches out of the corner of his eye as Neymar does the same on a neighboring cot. He can feel his countryman’s eyes on him, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, picking up his backpack again. 

“Do you want me to save that cot for you?” Neymar asks. Philippe hesitates, then nods once. Escapes to the bathroom. 

In the shower, he scrubs his skin raw under the steaming hot spray, then scrubs some more.

When he returns to his cot, he feels better. Not good, but better. 

“You should try and get some rest,” Neymar tells him. 

Philippe shakes his head a little; the idea of falling asleep in and of itself is terrifying right now, never mind falling asleep in an open, public place like this. 

Neymar sighs, crosses his legs. 

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll stay up with you then.”

-

They stay up late into the night, chatting sporadically about football and school. The lights never get turned off, for security reasons, so at some point, Neymar joins Philippe on his cot, and they start playing cards with a beat up, dog-eared deck that Neymar brought in his backpack. 

Philippe doesn’t know how, or when, he falls asleep. 

But he does know that when he wakes up, Neymar is sitting on the floor next to his cot, still awake, a game of solitaire in progress on the concrete in front of him, but his eyes ever watchful, tracking every person that enters or leaves the room, every person that walks by.  
-

_Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico_

James had vowed he wouldn’t fall asleep on the 7-hour drive from Comitán to Medias Aguas, but he wakes up as the van comes to a stop outside an open air market, and realizes he’s already failed on that front. 

He checks his backpack and his pockets; everything is still there. 

When he looks up, the driver, José, is watching him in the rear view mirror. Sister Cecilia introduced him as a trusted friend who was heading to Veracruz for work and was passing through Medias Aguas on the way. James is inclined to trust the word of a nun over just about anyone else. But he still worries. 

“I don’t blame you,” José says, turning around in his seat so he can look at James directly, “I hear some of the stories kids like you have to tell, and you don’t have a choice except to be cautious.”

James nods. José cuts an imposing physical figure, but his eyes on James are kind.

“For what it’s worth,” he continues, “I’m sorry that other people have treated you so badly. I hope you believe me when I say that I will not be one of them.”

James nods again.

“Come on.” José beckons him out of the car. “Let me buy you coffee and some food for the next leg.”

-

_Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico_

It’s about 2 in the afternoon when a man comes into the shelter, not quite running, but definitely with a sense of urgency. 

“There’s a train,” the man calls out, to no one, and everyone, “It’ll arrive in 45 minutes.”

There’s a pause, like everyone in the room takes in a collective breath. Then a rush of activity as people start gathering their things up, shoving belongings into bags, calling kids back from wherever they’ve wandered off to. 

Neymar pushes himself to his feet, picks his backpack up off the floor, and holds out a hand. After a few seconds, his companion takes the proffered hand, lets himself be pulled to his feet. 

He still hasn’t told Neymar his real name. Neymar is almost positive that his name isn’t Carlos. It’s not like he has some ironclad reason for believing that, other than the fact that if Neymar was in this kid’s situation, he’d do exactly the same thing. 

He does know a few things about him though—tidbits of information that trickled out over their late-night card games. He knows that they’re both trying to reach the U.S. border. He knows that ‘Carlos’ is from Rio, that he likes to play football, that he was just about to start secondary school before he left. 

Neymar hasn’t pushed for more information since then. Not even for a name. The state that he found the kid in, the injuries he has, they’re all consistent with one thing, and Neymar gets how something like that could destroy what little trust a person on this journey might have left in others. 

They head out to the street and follow the crowd streaming toward the train station. 

As they walk, Neymar watches his companion out of the corner of his eye, catalogs the slouch of his shoulders and the way he keeps his gaze on the ground. He doesn’t know if, or for how long, they’ll travel together, but he does know that, at least for the moment, things between them feel perhaps not comfortable, but not uncomfortable either. Neymar is content to let the silence stretch between them, acknowledging his companion’s preference for quiet, and his countryman, in turns, seems content to stick close to him 

They reach the station in about 15 minutes. The crowds are larger than before, the news of the incoming train no doubt having spread. Neymar picks his way through the masses, finds a spot near the front that he hopes will allow them a decent chance at getting on the train, even if it’s already crowded when it arrives. 

His companion tucks quietly into the space next to him, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his face a blank mask, pretty much as it has been ever since Neymar found him. 

“Hey, _mano_ ,” Neymar says, to get his attention. He glances over, and Neymar offers a thumbs up, raises his eyebrows in question. After a second or two, his companion nods in response. His shoulders relax a little, and Neymar feels something pull slightly in his gut. He doesn’t know this kid at all, doesn’t really have much reason to care about him, other than the fact that he’s the one who found him after...after. 

But there’s something about him that compels Neymar all the same. Maybe it’s just that they’re two Brazilians, adrift in a sea of Spanish-speaking South and Central Americans, trying to make it to the same place, trying to get somewhere safe. Maybe it’s just that looking out for another person gives Neymar something to focus on besides the fatigue, and the hunger, and the constant, gnawing fear. 

Maybe it’s just that, after almost giving in to the necessity-driven temptations of the _favela_ , after abandoning his family, after breaking countless laws just to escape, he needs to convince himself that he’s still a good person.


	6. Chapter 6

_Medias Aguas, Veracruz, Mexico_

Standing by the train tracks in Medias Aguas, José gives James a bag full of food and bottles of water, as well as a sketched out map of the train route north on a piece of paper. 

“You have to switch trains in Lechería,” José tells him, pointing to a labeled dot on the map, “There are a lot of different trains going to different places up north. It just depends on where you want to try and cross the border.”

“Where’s the best place?” James asks, eyeing the names of the border towns that José has written down—Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Juarez, Mexicali, Tijuana. He doesn’t know anything about any of them, except Juarez, and only then what he’s heard on the news. 

“None of them are easy, _m’ijo_ ,” José says, “They all have their problems. If I had to choose one though, I would say Juarez. You hear about how dangerous it is, but there are also lots of people there who know about how to get across the border.”

James tucks his lower lip between his teeth and nods. Even if José is right, he doesn’t have any money left to pay a _coyote_ to get him across the border. His mind runs through possible ways of remedying that situation. A split second later he feels ashamed for considering, even for a split second, some of them. 

“James.” José puts a hand on James’s shoulder, guides him back a little ways into the brush surrounding the train tracks. James stiffens for a moment, and José releases him, holds up his hands to show him his intentions aren’t malicious. 

“I just didn’t want someone out there to see this,” he says, reaching into his pocket. When he withdraws his hand, he’s holding a packet of carefully stacked bills. They’re all green, which tells James that they’re U.S. dollars. 

“This is five thousand U.S. dollars,” José says, lowering his voice, “This should be enough to hire a _coyote_ to bring you across the border.”

He holds out the money. James shakes his head, momentarily lost for words. 

“I ca—I can’t,” he stammers, “I _can’t_.” He doesn’t know if this money is José’s own money, or if it came from the church in Comitán, but either way, he can’t take it. 

José takes his hand, presses the bills into his palm and closes his fingers around them. 

“It’s okay,” he says. James shakes his head again, overwhelmed.

“Listen, _m’ijo_ ,” José says gently, “You’re not my son. But you are someone’s son. And you deserve to be safe.”

James looks down at the money in his hand.

“Thank you,” he says, understanding what José is telling him, but still having trouble wrapping his mind around the generosity. 

“Be careful,” José says, “Trust your instincts. Stay strong.”

The last thing he does before he leaves is take off his baseball cap and settle it on James’ head. 

“For the sun,” he says. 

And then he’s gone. 

-

_Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico_

“Hey.”

Philippe rouses out of a light doze to a hand on his arm. The sky above him is blue, cloudless, while the surface underneath his back is cold and unyielding. The rhythmic clunk-clunk of train wheels on track joints reminds him of where he is. His neck and back feel stiff as he pushes himself into a sitting position.

“Here. Eat up.” Neymar tosses a couple small paper-wrapped packets into Philippe’s lap. Philippe’s stomach growls at the smell wafting out of them. 

“Tamales,” Neymar explains, opening one of his own, “Some people in the town were out holding them out for people to grab as the train went by.”

Philippe unwraps one of the packets, unfolds the corn stalk wrapper, and bites into the tamale inside. He then resists the urge to stuff the rest of it into his mouth all at once because it tastes so good. 

Like everything else on this trip, Arriaga is already starting to feel distant, like it happened in a dream. If he shifts the wrong way, little twinges remind him what was done to him, but in his mind it’s like there’s a door that’s starting to close, shutting out those memories in favor of immediate matters at hand—food, sleep, not falling off the train. 

The train sways, and he feels Neymar’s shoulder jostle against his. He glances over at his fellow Brazilian, who’s currently concentrated on unwrapping his second tamale. Philippe still isn’t quite sure what to make of him, but he thinks that if Neymar wanted to hurt him, or abandon him, he would have done it by now. 

“Hey,” he says, nudging Neymar with his elbow. Neymar looks sideways at him, eyebrows raised a little in expectation. 

“My name’s not really Carlos,” Philippe admits. Neymar half-smiles. 

“I kind of figured,” he says, “What should I call you instead?”

“Philippe.”

-

_Medias Aguas, Veracruz, Mexico_

The sun goes down, and James dozes on a patch of ground close to the train tracks. In the middle of the night, he wakes up to footsteps close by his head. They stop next to him, and he hears low voices, barely above whispers. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but he senses someone leaning over him. He tightens his grip instinctively on his backpack. 

“He’s just a kid,” someone whispers.

“Leave him alone then,” someone else responds.

The footsteps move on. 

James doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, when other people wake up, a man further down the tracks starts screaming, his voice breaking. The crowd shifts, and James sees him, on his knees, staring at something on the ground. Other voices join his, and James is forcibly reminded of the families of neighbors back in Cúcuta, sobbing over the bodies of their children, siblings, cousins shot dead in the streets. 

It filters through the crowd, reaches people around James. A group of women, all gone missing in the night. In their place, their families found a severed ear, a finger. A tongue. People shudder, cross their arms tightly around themselves, look around nervously at each other. 

James thinks about the voices in the night, the people leaning over him. Feels like throwing up. 

-

_Veracruz/Oaxaca Border, Mexico_

“I like playing midfield. Making passes and outsmarting the defense. I like that.” 

Neymar sets his elbows on his knees, watches the fields and trees slide by in a seemingly endless panorama of green and brown. They’re talking about football, because Neymar’s tagged on to the fact that Philippe will actually talk about it, not just listen to Neymar talk. It’s a subject near and dear to Neymar’s heart, and he senses that it’s similarly so for his companion. 

“You don’t like to score goals?” he asks, glancing sideways. Philippe makes a face, catches Neymar looking at him, and quirks one corner of his mouth up.

“Of course I do,” he replies, “But being a midfielder, you have to be creative and think quickly. It’s a challenge.”

Neymar hums in acknowledgment, leans back on his hands.

“So what you’re really saying is, strikers are stupid.”

Philippe huffs out something that sounds a lot like a laugh.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “Yeah, maybe.”

Neymar clutches a hand to his chest.

“Ouch,” he groans, “You wound me.”

Philippe purses his lips. It’s clear he’s trying not to laugh. Neymar notches the conversation up as a victory. Lets the positive note that it ended on hang in the air for a while. 

Eventually, he reaches over, nudges Philippe’s shoulder. 

“Hey,” he says, “I’m gonna grab a nap while it’s light.” Philippe nods. It’s unspoken, but understood that while Neymar’s sleeping, Philippe’s tasked with staying awake, looking after their stuff, and most importantly, making sure Neymar doesn’t fall off the train. They never sleep at the same time. 

“Wake me up if we get to a town,” Neymar adds, lying down on the hard metal surface of the boxcar and trying to get as comfortable as he can. Philippe nods. 

Neymar curls one arm up under his head for a pillow, and within a few minutes, he’s asleep.

-

_Medias Aguas, Veracruz, Mexico_

They hear the train before they see it. The distant blare of a train horn induces a flurry of activity as people gather up their things, shoulder their backpacks, move to the edge of the tracks. James does the same. He’s not sure what to expect, not sure how this is going to go. 

The train comes barreling down the tracks. Something like a tremor runs through the assembled crowd. James touches the crucifix in his pocket. Tries not to think about Manuel, back in Comitán. 

A rush of air as the train roars up, the cars sliding by at a terrifying rate. People surge forward, breaking into a collective sprint on the dusty, uneven ground surrounding the tracks. James joins them. His backpack is heavy, weighed down with the food and water José gave him, and it takes every ounce of concentration he has to keep one eye on the train cars and the other on the people around him. There are people on the boxcar platforms and on the car tops, holding out hands, beckoning and yelling for people to jump. 

Ahead of him, James sees a man stumble. Behind him he hears a horrible scream. He keeps running.

“ _Se va a pasar_!” someone yells, “You’re not going to make it!”

Panic sears through James’ veins. He looks over his shoulder at the passing cars, fixes his sights on a ladder that’s about to come up next to him. 

Says a final prayer. Launches himself at the ladder. 

His fingers close around cold metal. Wind whips his face, the motion of the train buffeting him from side to side. He gets his left foot on a rung, then his right, and just like that, he’s on. 

“ _P’arriba, p’arriba_!” the people on the boxcar platform shout at him, gesturing to the people still running alongside the train. James obediently pulls himself up the ladder, toward the top of the car. 

Just as he reaches the final rung, his left foot slips off the ladder, followed in rapid succession by his left hand. For one, awful moment, he thinks he’s going to die.

Then hands are grabbing his forearms, hauling him back upward. He swings there, suspended, for the longest three seconds of his life. Then he manages to plant his feet back on the ladder, pushes himself up and, with the help of whoever’s holding onto him, lands in a breathless heap on the roof of the boxcar. 

“Jesus christ, I thought you were dead, man.” James props himself up on one elbow. He’s trembling, and he’s pretty sure the guy who’s talking to him can see it. 

“Thought so too,” he admits shakily, sitting up all the way. The speaker crouches down next to him. He doesn’t look much older than James, if at all. Another boy is standing behind him, hands tucked in his pockets.

“Did you pull me up?” James asks, clasping his hands around his knees to try and keep them from shaking so much. The boy nods, tilts his head toward the one who’s standing. 

“Me and him,” he replies. His Spanish is accented, tinged with something James can’t quite place.

“Thanks. Thank you.”

“Are you alright?” the boy asks. James takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. 

“Yeah,” he responds, unclasping his hands and finding that they’re not shaking anymore, “I think so.”

The boy nods. For a few moments, there’s silence, just the creak and groan of the train, the low murmur of other voices nearby. 

“Are you alone?” the boy asks eventually. James hesitates, which he supposes is answer enough. He settles for a shrug.

“You can sit with us, if you want,” the boy suggests, glancing up at his companion, “Might be safer.”

James hesitates again, weighing the pros and cons, the possible positive and negative consequences of agreeing. It’s a calculus he undertakes without even really realizing it. After a few seconds, he nods. A hand extends into his vision, and he takes it, allows himself to be pulled to his feet.


	7. Chapter 7

_Near Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico_

The sun hasn’t come up yet, but the faint glow on the horizon tells Philippe that it’s close to dawn. In the distance, the lights of a city flicker in the darkness. It’s cool, but not cold. Philippe pushes up the sleeves of the shirt he’s wearing, sets his elbows on his knees.

Next to him, Neymar and the other boy that they pulled up onto the train three days ago are asleep, sweatshirts and backpacks tucked up under their heads as makeshift pillows. Their newest traveling companion is named James. He’s quiet, unobtrusive, and he has bottles of water in his backpack that he readily shared with both of them. His face is young, but he carries himself like he’s much older. Philippe supposes they all do, now. He has a nasty-looking cut on the right side of his face, a gift, he’d said, from some MS-13 members at the border. 

He seems nice. He speaks in a measured, considered way that reminds Philippe of Cris, and Philippe hasn’t thought about his brothers much since he left Guatemala City, hasn’t really had a chance to. Now that he does, it’s with an increasing sense of something like guilt that he replays the things they’ve said and done—Cris’s long, lonely nights of hard labor in an unfamiliar city, Leandro bending, but apparently never breaking under Paolo’s abuse. 

So much of it was because of him, Philippe realizes. And he never thanked them, never had a chance to even begin to try and repay them. 

He doesn’t know what that says about him. 

A cough from a couple feet away, and then a figure sits up in the semi-darkness. The glow on the horizon is getting brighter with every passing minute, and Philippe can tell by the person’s profile who it is. 

“Did you sleep?” he asks in Spanish. 

“Sort of,” James replies. He gulps down some water, then holds out the bottle for Philippe, who takes it. 

“Thanks.” 

Between them, they finish the rest of the bottle. The train noise fills the silence between them. Overhead, the sky starts to turn pink and orange. 

“So, I’ve been trying to figure out your accent,” James says eventually. His tone is light, amiable. 

“Yeah?” Philippe asks in reply, “Did you reach a conclusion?”

“Yeah,” James responds, “You’re not Colombian.”

Philippe smiles a little. So James is from Colombia.

“That is correct,” he says. 

“I don’t think you’re Mexican either,” James continues after a short pause, “You don’t swear enough.”

Philippe laughs out loud before he can stop himself. 

“ _No mames, guey_ ,” he says, parroting that quintessentially Mexican response that he’s heard countless times on this journey. James’ answering grin is bright in the early morning light. 

“And that’s it,” he concludes, tossing the empty water bottle in the air and catching it, “That’s the extent of my conclusions.”

Philippe nods in acknowledgment. Leans back on his hands. Glances over to where Neymar is still sleeping. 

“We’re both from Brazil,” he says, “Probably why you couldn’t figure our accent out.”

“Ahhh, man.” James sounds disappointed with himself. “I thought Neymar was a really unusual name but. Man. I should brush up on my geography or something.”

“Well. There probably aren’t many Brazilians around here,” Philippe points out. James tosses the bottle in the air again. Catches it, glances over at Philippe. 

“I don’t know,” he offers, sounding just a little hesitant, “I heard things are getting pretty bad there.”

It comes out like a question. Philippe shrugs. He’s not sure he’s ready to go down that line of conversation. Not yet. 

James doesn’t press him on it, just accepts his non-response and gently changes the subject. It makes Philippe wonder what James has been through, to understand that there are some things that are simply too hard to talk about.

-

_Lechería, Tultitlan, Mexico_

No one talks above a whisper as people climb off the train in Lechería en masse. It’s not just because it’s the middle of the night. 

“The police know we have to change trains here,” a woman from Guatemala had told them, “They demand money, or help the gangs kidnap you if you can’t pay.”

As his feet touch solid ground for the first time in days, Neymar thinks about Elias. Imagines that that was child’s play compared to what could happen here. This is the birth place of the Zetas, ground zero, where they honed their ruthlessness before exporting it to Guatemala, Honduras, and beyond. 

A flashlight shines through a cluster of heavy brush, illuminates several people walking directly ahead of them. 

“Don’t move!” a voice shouts. More flashlights. People start running. Neymar instinctively follows suit, senses more than sees James and Philippe running next to him. With every step, he half-expects to hear gun fire, expects to feel a bullet rip into his back. He loses track of the flashlights almost immediately, and he’s just following the other people who are running when someone grabs his collar, yanks him back so hard that he chokes. He gets tossed to the ground, pushed onto his stomach, and a knee shoves into his lower back. 

“Don’t move,” a male voice says above him. He hears fast footsteps around him, more shouts telling someone not to move, a yelp. Neymar tries to turn his head to see what’s happening. A hand at the back of his head shoves his face against the ground. 

“I said: don’t move.”

Neymar manages to get his head turned anyways, so he sees the uniformed officer with the word “Policia” on his jacket stalk into his field of vision and shove Philippe onto the ground. 

“Easy,” Neymar says sharply, “He’s just a kid.”

The knee in his back digs into his spine, hard enough to hurt.

“Shut up.”

The officer standing over Philippe turns around and looks off somewhere Neymar can’t see. 

“I couldn’t find the third one,” he says, “Got away from me.”

“Oh well,” the person with his knee in Neymar’s back says, “Let’s see what these two have.” The knee lets up, but before Neymar can react, he’s being dragged to his feet, and then he’s looking into the barrel of a gun. The man holding the gun is also dressed like a police officer. Neymar wonders if they’re actually police, or gang members in disguise. He could easily believe either one.

The officer standing over Philippe leans over him, pushes at his shoulder.

“Where’s your money?” he asks.

Philippe shakes his head, flinches a little when the officer pushes him again, harder. 

“You’re going north,” the officer says, “You have to have money to pay a _coyote_ at the border. So where is it?”

“I don’t—I don’t have any left,” Philippe responds, barely audible. The officer straightens up, looks over at his partner, and at Neymar.

“Who’s he?” he asks, kicking at Philippe’s ankle until he looks up. He points at Neymar. “Who is he? Your brother?”

“My friend.”

The officer looks at his partner, jerks his chin up. Neymar has about a second to wonder what that means. Then a fist cracks into the side of his face and he crumples to the ground, half-stunned, half-blind with the pain of it. 

“Hey,” he hears Philippe shout, “Hey, leave him alone—“

A hand in his collar, pulling him up. Another blow that makes his vision go white at the edges. He tastes blood. 

Something in his mind says: they’re going to kill you. 

Someone is shouting. The punches stop. Someone is speaking in rapid fire Spanish, too fast for Neymar to really follow in his semi-coherent state. Silence, then another burst of Spanish. He feels suddenly, intensely tired, but he forces his eyes open. Sees James standing a few feet away, holding his hand out with something in it. One of the officers takes whatever it is that he’s holding. Says something Neymar can’t hear. Walks away. 

“Fuck. _Mano_ , can you hear me? Hey.” Something soft gets pressed against the side of his face. 

“Hurts,” he mumbles. Philippe’s and James’ faces float in his blurry vision. 

“Yeah. Fuck. Goddamn it…” Philippe switches over from Portuguese to Spanish, talking to James, and it’s too much effort for Neymar to keep track of what’s being said. He feels them haul him upright, holding his arms around their shoulders so they can carry him. He feels bad, tries to use his legs to support some of the weight, but it’s like his feet won’t work right. 

-

When he wakes up the next morning on a cot in a shelter for migrants, Philippe tells him that he was conscious and talking to them the whole way to the shelter, but Neymar doesn’t remember anything after the very first punch. 

-

“Philippe said you paid them off. A thousand U.S.”

“Yeah. I came back around when I realized you guys weren’t with me. Heard them asking for your money.”

“Where’d you get a thousand dollars U.S?”

“A church. In Chiapas.”

“Well. I’m pretty sure you saved my life.”

“…Just returning the favor.”

-

_Near Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico_

Just outside Tula, there’s a small town that James doesn’t know the name of. The people standing by the tracks look as though they are just getting by. But they smile at James as he hangs off the boxcar ladder, one hand outstretched for the bags of food and water that they’ve prepared. They’re mostly women, mostly older. James wishes he could do more for them than just smile back at them and call out a thank you as the train streams by. 

He clambers back up to the top of the car, deposits one bag into Neymar’s lap, sets another one aside for Philippe, who’s asleep, and keeps one for himself. 

“They’re saints,” Neymar says as he opens the bag and looks inside, “The people who do this, I mean.” 

“I agree,” James replies. 

It’s a cool day; the sun is hidden behind clouds, and there’s a dampness in the air. James watches as Neymar digs a spare sweatshirt out of his backpack, drapes it over Philippe’s shoulders. 

“Did you know each other, back in Brazil?” he asks. Neymar gives him a considering look, then looks away. 

“We met in Mexico.”

There’s more, James can tell. He doesn’t say anything, though, knows it’s not his place to demand more than Neymar’s willing to give. 

Neymar sighs.

“I met him when someone dumped him out of the back of a truck, after they had drugged him and raped him.”

James looks down at his hands. He’s not sure what to say. 

“At least, I think that’s what happened,” Neymar amends flatly, “He doesn’t remember anything, and I only found him afterward so. I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

“But you know,” James observes quietly. Neymar nods, staring off into the middle distance.

“Yeah,” he says, “I think we both do. It’s…you know. Yeah. When I found him. Yeah. I knew.”

James nods.

“He’s lucky that you’re the one who found him,” he says. Neymar shakes his head, lets out a long breath.

“I—yeah. I can’t even think about it too much,” he replies, “Like if I think too much about what could have happened…yeah.”

James nods again. Glances down at Philippe, who appears to have slept through the entire conversation. The sweatshirt Neymar covered him with is sliding off. James reaches out, pulls it carefully back into place. 

-

_Salamanca, Guanajuato, Mexico_

It’s raining, and none of them have umbrellas, or even pieces of cardboard to try and shield themselves from the deluge. Fortunately it’s not a cold rain, and Philippe figures it’s probably the closest thing he’ll get to a shower for awhile. 

“Hey James.” Neymar is sprawled out on his side, propping himself up with his backpack. “You play football?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“What position?” Neymar asks, “Think carefully, because according to Philippe, your answer indicates your intelligence.” He flashes a grin in Philippe’s direction. 

“Uh…mostly midfield?” James phrases it like a question, “But sometimes I play striker too.”

“Alright, _mano_ ,” Neymar says, turning to Philippe, “So where does James fit into your little formula?”

“Well he’s smarter than you,” Philippe jibes, blinking a few rain droplets out of his eyes, “For starters.” Neymar huffs in mock annoyance, glances at James.

“This one—“ he jerks a thumb in Philippe’s direction, “—thinks strikers are categorically stupid because we’re not creative enough. Or something like that.”

James is smiling, amused. 

“Well, I mean. Midfielders do have to think quickly and pick out the right pass, no?” he reasons, “Strikers just have to try and put the ball in the net.”

Neymar narrows his eyes at James.

“I’m feeling very outnumbered right now,” he declares. James catches Philippe’s eye, winks. Philippe smiles, and it doesn’t feel forced.


	8. Chapter 8

_Guanajuato/Zacatecas Border, Mexico_

“Can I ask you something?” 

It’s late afternoon, the sun warm, just bordering on hot. They’re down to their last few bottles of water, trying to conserve them. James directs the question at Neymar, but Neymar senses that it’s meant to be an invitation for Philippe as well, if he wants to take it. 

“Sure,” he responds. 

“Why’d you leave Brazil?”

It’s weird, Neymar thinks to himself, that it’s such a logical question, and yet he hasn’t thought about his answer, really thought about it, in what feels like a long time. 

“Los Zetas,” he says, looking at his hands, “The cartel, you know, the Mexican one. They thought it was about time I joined up with them. And, you know. They don’t take no for an answer.”

“Yeah,” James acknowledges quietly. 

“What about you?” Neymar asks. James shrugs, looks away.

“Gangs,” he replies after a moment, “You see something they don’t want you to see and…” He trails off, shrugs again. Neymar nods, doesn’t need him to finish his sentence to know what he means. He gets it, too, that some things, some details are too raw, too close to put into words. 

Next to him, he feels Philippe shift a little. He looks over, and his countryman is worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Neymar nudges him with an elbow. Philippe shrugs.

“It wasn’t gangs or cartels, for me,” he says in Portuguese. He shakes his head a little, then repeats it in Spanish. 

“Sorry,” he says, looking across Neymar at James. 

“Don’t be,” James replies. He fools with the mostly empty water bottle in his hands. “It’s your story, you know. So…so however you want to tell it…you shouldn’t like, change it just for me, or whatever.”

Philippe nods a little. 

He doesn’t say anything more, but the silence feels different to Neymar. Lighter. Less solid. Comfortable. 

-

_Near Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico_

In the middle of the night, James gets jostled awake by the movement of the train. For a moment he thinks he’s falling, breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes he’s not. 

Low voices reach his ears.

“It’s a long way down, huh?”

“Don’t. Please.” Portuguese accent. So either Philippe or Neymar. There’s a sleeping form to his right, but he can’t tell who it is in the darkness.

“Maybe we’ll throw you off first and then your friends. See if any of you survive.”

“No.”

“Who are they anyway? Your boyfriends?”

“They’re my brothers.” James strains to catch the voice; he thinks it might be Neymar. 

“Huh. You don’t look much like each other.”

“They’re my brothers.” The voice is stronger this time, and it’s definitely Neymar. 

“Yeah? How about we go down and talk about what you’re willing to do for them, huh?

There’s barely a pause before Neymar responds.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

Later, when Neymar returns to the top of the boxcar, it’s just light enough for James to see the way his hair and clothes are disheveled, disorderly, like they were removed and hastily put back on. James feels a painful flash of realization.

Philippe wakes up when Neymar sits back down next to him. Neymar warns James with his eyes not to say anything. James obliges. The guilt seeps through him though, and when Neymar goes down the ladder at the next town and comes back up with food, James can barely eat. 

-

_Coahuila/Chihuahua Border, Mexico_

“My parents died when I was 10.” 

It’s early morning, and Philippe is lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Neymar is staring off at the horizon, so concentrated on shutting out the ghost-like sensation of hands under his shirt and inside his jeans that he barely hears his countryman’s statement. With effort, he drags himself away from the memory, brings himself back to the present.

“Gangs?” James asks from Philippe’s other side. Philippe shakes his head.

“Car accident.” 

Neymar looks down at him, watches his throat bob as he swallows before continuing. 

“We had to go live with my uncle. My brothers and I.” Philippe squints a little at the sky, even though it’s not bright out yet. “He always drank a lot but. It got worse when we moved in.”

Neymar realizes where this is going. Judging by the way James shifts, looks away, he does too.

“He’d get drunk, and mad. And he’d just…beat us up.”

Philippe raises his hands up, rests the backs of them across his eyes.

“My brothers sent me away,” he concludes, just a hint of strain in his voice, “To protect me. Because I was the youngest.”

Neymar shakes his head a little. Reaches out to pat a comforting hand on Philippe’s chest.

Reminds himself that, whatever he’s been through, other people have been through worse. 

-

_Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico_

Philippe can’t tell how much money it is exactly that James holds to the _coyote_ , but it’s a lot. The _coyote_ is an older man with a kind face. Some nuns at one of the churches told them to avoid the younger _coyotes_ , if possible—they were more likely to be affiliated with the gangs or the cartels.

“How much is it?” he asks. He doesn’t try to take the money right away, Philippe notes. 

“Four thousand,” James replies, “I can count it out for you, if you want.” His tone is polite, but firm.

The _coyote_ shakes his head.

“No need,” he says.

“That is enough for you,” he continues, then motions to Neymar and Philippe, “Not them.”

“This is all I have,” James replies. The _coyote_ shrugs. 

“Then you can go, _m’ijo_ , but not them.”

Philippe glances at Neymar, then at James.

“You should go,” he tells James, “While you can.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Neymar nod. James shakes his head, pulls the money back and tucks it into his pocket. 

“No,” he says, “We’ll find someone else.”

“James,” Neymar says, like he’s going to argue.

“No,” James repeats. He looks at the _coyote_. “You can take all three of us for four thousand, or you can find someone else to take across.”

He’s being an idiot, Philippe thinks, but at the same time, part of him is desperately, desperately grateful. He has no idea where he and Neymar would come up with eight thousand dollars on their own.

The _coyote_ studies James for a few seconds.

“Where you are from?” he asks, glancing between the three of them, “All of you.” Philippe isn’t sure why he’s asking, what he’s getting at. James doesn’t hesitate with his answer though. 

“Colombia,” he responds, “And Brazil.” He trades a look with Neymar, then Philippe that says, it’s okay, I’m not trying to sell you out. Not that there’s anything either of them could do about it at this point. 

“We’ve come a long way,” he adds, softening his tone just slightly, “And it hasn’t been easy.”

The _coyote_ is quiet for a moment. No doubt surveying the bruises on Neymar’s face, the still-healing gash on the side of James’ face. 

“Okay,” he says eventually, “I want to be paid up front though.”

James shakes his head again.

“Two thousand now,” he says, “The rest when we get across the border.”

The _coyote_ looks irritated, but something tells Philippe it’s mostly just for show. 

“You’re pretty insistent for a kid,” he tells James. James shrugs.

“Like I said,” he replies, glancing at Philippe and Neymar, “We’ve come a long way.”

-

“Why did you do that?”

Neymar studies James’ face as they sit on a bank on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and wait for the _coyote_ to return. 

“Do what?” James quirks a half smile that tells Neymar he knows exactly what he’s talking about and that his response is mostly rhetorical. He shifts his feet on the grass, pulls at a fraying shoelaces. 

“It’s just…” he shrugs, “Did you want me to leave you guys here?”

“No, of course not. But you had a chance. You should have taken it.”

James shakes his head, still looking down at his shoes.

“I’d never. I’d never be able to. You know.” He pauses. “I left my parents, back in Colombia. The gang—they could kill them, because of me. If I did that to you guys…I’d never be able to live with that.”

Neymar’s chest feels a little tight.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. James clears his throat and nods, presses a discreet knuckle to the corner of one eye. 

Neymar reaches an arm around his shoulders, pulls him into a sideways hug.

“Thanks,” he repeats. 

-

The crossing takes all of five minutes. The inflatable raft that the coyote uses holds all the way across the river. As they clamber up onto the river bank, James realizes that this is U.S. soil under his hands and feet, that he’s actually made it to El Norte. 

The _coyote_ stows the raft in some bushes and comes back to them. Before he can say anything, though, engine sounds and the crunch of tires on gravel reach their ears. 

“Bushes,” the _coyote_ hisses. 

James has taken all of five steps when someone yells for them to freeze. James takes two more steps.

“U.S. Border Patrol!” the same voice shouts in Spanish, “Don’t move!” 

Footsteps behind him. James freezes, and someone grabs him by the collar. 

“Don’t move.”

James raises his hands in surrender.

“Okay,” he says in English, “Okay.”

“Come over here,” the person holding his collar says in American-accented Spanish. He turns slightly, sees that it’s a woman. She gestures him to walk, and he obeys. 

“Any weapons?” the woman asks. She’s dressed in dark green, with golden badge on her sleeve. 

“No.”

“Drugs?” 

James shakes his head. They come up to a truck with red and blue lights on the top, and a green stripe along the side. James only had a couple years of English in school, but he knows enough to make out the words across the side: Border Patrol.

“Hands here,” the woman says, tapping the hood of the truck, “Spread your legs.” 

She takes his backpack off and searches him, patting up and down his legs and arms. As he’s standing there, he hears other voices and footsteps, and a few seconds later, Neymar and Philippe are leaning against the hood next to him. He doesn’t see the _coyote_ anywhere. 

It also doesn’t escape James’ notice the way Neymar tenses noticeably when one of the male officers searches the lower half of his body. 

“How old are you?” a second male officer asks. 

“Sixteen,” James responds. 

“And you?” he asks Neymar.

“Fifteen.”

“And you?” to Philippe.

“Fourteen.”

The officers search their backpacks, checks their pockets, then usher them into the back of the truck. Tell them they’re being taken to a temporary holding facility. Give them water and packets of crackers. 

They drive for almost an hour. When they reach the holding facility, one look tells James that it’s actually a jail. There’s barbed wire lining the walls, and they have to pass through a gate with guard shacks on either side to go inside. It makes his stomach sink, that they’ve gotten this far, only to be locked up and sent back.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Two Years Later**  
Huntington Park, California, USA_

The cross is picture-perfect. James doesn’t have to adjust his stride at all, just puts his laces through the ball, watches it slice into the lower left hand corner of the net. The stands erupt in celebration, and James wheels away, points at his benefactor, #12, running toward him, clenched fists in the air.

“You, Adán!” James shouts as his teammate leaps into his arms, “You!” 

“All you,” Adán counters, pounding him on the back, “ _Pinche golazo, no mames_.”

Orange jerseys crowd into James’ vision, hands grabbing his arms, slapping him on the back. Spanish, with a smattering of English, fills the air around him. In the background, over the crowd noise, he hears the announcement on the loudspeaker.

“Goalscorer for the Huntington Park Spartans, senior, #10, James Rodriguez.”

Five and a half minutes later, the ref blows the whistle, and James goal stands as the gamewinner. They’re through to the Los Angeles City Section final, for the first time in school history. 

James trots toward the sideline, tired, but happy. Football, soccer, fútbol, whatever you call it, it’s been his refuge ever since he got here. When, in those first few months, he didn’t understand anything in any of his classes, and he wanted to cry with frustration every day after school, being able to go out to the field after classes and kick a ball with a bunch of other boys who spoke Spanish had been paramount to his sanity. 

He hadn’t had any expectations as to how good he was going to be, how he was going to measure up. And yet here he is, putting away game winners to make school history. This is only his second year here, and he won’t get any more because he’ll be graduating at the end of this year, but it feels good, to have something, a community to play for, a team that he can belong to.

“ _Guey_ *!” A body leaps on his back, arms wrapping around his shoulders. He reaches back instinctively to support the piggyback.

“ _Que onda_ , Sixto?” he asks. 

“ _Guey_ , that was a sick goal!” Sixto, his fellow striker exclaims, “Their keeper didn’t even move! You totally flat-footed him.” His Spanish is rapid-fire, tinged with the distinct coastal accent of Veracruz. He slides off James’ back, practically bounces around to stand in front of him. He’s grinning, all brash youth and pride, but underneath it, James knows there’s a kid who gets what it’s like to come here with nothing.

“We’re gonna fucking win this whole thing,” Sixto says, totally sure of himself. He bear hugs James, then runs off to get a piggy back ride from Julio, one of their defenders. 

“Hey.” Adán falls into step next to him. “That was a nice cross, wasn’t it?” 

“I’ve seen better,” James deadpans. Gets a shove for it. 

“That was the best cross you’ve ever seen. Say it.”

“That was the worst cross I’ve ever seen.”

They switch back and forth between Spanish and English without even really realizing it. It’s comfortable, easy. James’ English is better now. Not perfect, but good. At his final immigration court hearing, where the judge granted him asylum almost a year ago, she had complimented him on his English. 

“You owe me,” Adán says as they reach the sideline, “I want to score one last goal before I graduate.”

“Okay,” James agrees, all banter aside, because Adán was the first one to welcome him into the team, the first one to invite him over for dinner, the first one to make him feel like he wasn’t totally lost here, “I’ll do my best.” 

Adán smiles. He does a pretty good job of hiding it, but James catches the way his eyes flicker over James’s shoulder.

“What—“ James starts to turn, and does so just in time to get a face full of ice water as his teammates dump the contents of the water cooler over his head. 

-

_Los Angeles, California, USA_

Neymar does a pretty good job of hiding it from their foster parents, but Philippe knows when the other boy hasn’t slept, can tell by the redness in his eyes, his subdued disposition all day, the number of shots he misses at football—soccer—practice after school.

Today is one of those days. They get on the bus to go to school, take a seat together like they always do, and Neymar immediately rests his head against the window, closes his eyes. 

“Hey.” Philippe nudges him with an elbow. 

“’m tired,” Neymar mumbles in Portuguese.

“I know.” Philippe doesn’t say that he also knows that Neymar woke up crying in the middle of the night last night from a nightmare. He might, one of these times, but today doesn’t seem like a good day. “I was just going to tell you that I have to stay late again today, so you need to tell the coach.”

“For what?”

“Counselor appointment.”

“Mm…you’re still going to those?”

Philippe nods.

“Even now that all the court stuff is over?” Neymar asks.

“Yeah,” Philippe says with another nod, “It helped with the court case but…it helps with other stuff too, you know?” _Like not being able to sleep_ , he doesn’t add. The truth is, he’s talked to his counselor about Neymar a fair bit, and she’s told him many times that he can’t push anything on him, that it has to be his decision to talk to someone. 

Both of their immigration court cases are concluded, and have been for some time now. Philippe has long had his suspicions that something happened on the train that he didn’t know about at the time, and the longer Neymar drags on like this, the more convinced he is that he’s right. Originally, he’d thought Neymar was having trouble sleeping because they were locked up in a detention center, and then later in a group home, and then because they were both in immigration court, fighting to not get deported. 

But with the help of a team of lawyers, who Philippe knows they’ll never be able to repay for as long as he lives, both of them are safe now, not in danger of being sent back. Yet Neymar continues to struggle.

And so Philippe thinks that whatever is keeping him up at night, it’s something else, something deeper, something unresolved. 

-

“Mr. Santos?”

Neymar jolts awake and looks around, momentarily disoriented. _Shit_ , he thinks when he gets his bearings back. Math class. School. Teacher. Right.

“Sorry,” he says. His voice comes out hoarse. He clears his throat. People are staring at him.

“Sorry,” he repeats. His math teacher, Ms. Jordan, looks at him for a few seconds, clearly irritated, and Neymar figures he’s going to get yelled at, knows he deserves it. He’s just so _tired_ , and he can’t make the nightmares stop and the only way to avoid them is to not sleep—

“Why don’t you see me after class,” Ms. Jordan says, before going back to the lesson. 

_That’s it_? Neymar thinks to himself. It can’t be. Ms. Jordan is nice, but not someone to be messed with. She must be really pissed. He’s really going to get it after class. 

-

The bell rings fifteen minutes later. Neymar gathers his things up with everyone else, but stays in his seat as his classmates file out. Ms. Jordan waits until everyone’s gone, then comes over and sits in a desk next to Neymar’s. 

“Any particular reason you’re falling asleep in class?” she asks. Neymar’s English is good nowadays, good enough that he only has to go to language class twice a week, but he still appreciates that Ms. Jordan speaks extra clearly when she’s talking to him. 

“Didn’t sleep last night,” he replies. 

“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Ms. Jordan observes, and Neymar feels a flush rising up his cheeks. 

“Neymar.” Her voice turns gentle. “Is everything okay at home?”

And. Well. Neymar wasn’t expecting that question. 

“Yeah,” he says, trying for nonchalant, “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Neymar nods once, not looking at her. Not wanting to. 

He hears her sigh.

“Neymar, you know we get files about students at the beginning of each school year,” she says, “It tells us if there’s anything we should be aware of.”

She pauses.

“You’ve been through a lot,” she continues, “And I imagine you’re really good at taking care of problems on your own.”

Neymar shrugs.

“You don’t have to tell me right now,” she says, “But if something is wrong, or if something bad happened or is happening…I will help you in any way I can.”

Neymar thinks about hands and fingers and mouths and darkness and _nonono_ , and he can’t tell her about that, he doesn’t think he can tell anyone about that. 

“I—thanks,” he mutters, reaching hastily for his backpack, “Thanks but. Everything’s fine. It’s fine.”

He flees. 

-

At soccer practice that afternoon, he pushes himself to the limit, sprints until his legs are on fire and his lungs feel like they’re going to burst. If he makes himself tired enough, he thinks, maybe he’ll be too exhausted to dream. 

-

“Okay Philippe. Let’s talk about your brothers. Leandro and Cris?”

“Yeah. Cris is the oldest. Then Leandro, then me.”

“What was your relationship with them like?”

“Good. Really good. Leandro lived with me and my uncle. Cris moved out when my parents died. To work. But they both really cared for me, you know. _Eles cuidaram_ …they took care of me.”

“In what way?”

“Like, in every way. They gave me money for food and for football things—soccer things, I mean. Cris moved away so he could work and give me money. And they paid for me to come here.”

“And what about with your uncle?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they protect you?”

“…yeah. Yeah, Leandro would protect me. He got beat up a lot because of me.”

“Because of you?”

“Yeah because… _como digo_ , he would protect me because I was younger. And so my uncle would get even more mad and just. Hit him.”

“What did you think of that?”

“…I didn’t really understand it. Or like, I didn’t… _aprec_ \--appreciate? Appreciate it enough. Like, the choice was between him getting beat up, or me getting beat up, you know. So. He took a lot of beatings for me, basically. Sometimes…like sometimes, I think, you know…these bad things that happened to me, on the way here, they were like payback or something. Or like… _castigo_.”

“Punishment?”

“Yeah. Yeah, punishment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _Guey_ : Mexican slang for dude, man, bro


	10. Chapter 10

_Huntington Park, California, USA_

Practice is over for the day, but the weather is nice, so most of the team hangs out afterward. They get a _cascarita_ * going in the 18 yard box, which rapidly turns into a contest to see who can nutmeg each other the most. 

Vicente, one of their midfielders, goes through about half the team in one run. Then he tries to nutmeg Sixto, who grabs him around the waist to stop him. 

“ _Falta_!” Vicente shouts to no one in particular, tries to wrestle Sixto into a headlock. “Man, you _delanteros_ don’t even try to be creative with your fouls, huh?”

“It’s your job to be creative,” Sixto retorts, “I don’t gotta be creative, I just gotta score _golazos, sabes_?”

“So what you’re saying is you’re stupid,” Vicente grumbles, shoving affectionately at the back of Sixto’s head. 

“Yeah, _loco, así es_.”

James feels a sudden, unpleasant pull in his chest. He catches Adán’s eye, signals that he’s heading over to the sideline for water. As he turns away, he can already feel memories flooding up inside him, threatening to overwhelm him.

It was sudden, the separation. One night, he was in a shelter with Philippe and Neymar, and the next morning he woke up and they were both gone, along with three other boys. The shelter workers wouldn’t tell him where they’d gone, only that they were being transferred. 

That was almost two years ago, now. The abruptness of it, the sharp edges of loss have dulled with time, but he still thinks about them, about la bestia, and sometimes, like now, the recollection can still catch him off guard. 

He gets a bottle of water from his bag, thinks about how precious a commodity a bottle like this once was for him, and how easily he has access to it now. 

This is why he tries not to think about it too much. Because when he does, it’s so easy to get pulled back in, to lose his way in the memories and the reflection.

He takes a seat on the sideline, pulls down his socks so he can take off his shinguards. As he takes another drink of water, he sees Adán glance over at him. A few minutes pass. Then Adán leaves the field, heads toward the sideline. 

James watches him approach. 

“What’s up, man?” Adán asks, taking a seat next to him on the grass, “You went and got quiet all of a sudden.”

James shrugs. He likes Adán, but he doesn’t think he’ll understand. Adán leans back on his hands, crosses his ankles and watches Sixto and the other guys goofing around in the 18 yard box. The game has apparently devolved. 

“You know,” he says eventually, in Spanish, “Julio and I came up from Guatemala together. On the train. We’re from the same city.”

James glances over at him, thinks about all the times he’s seen Adán and Julio sitting together, heard snatches of conversation between them in a language he doesn’t understand and sounds nothing like Spanish.**

“Yeah?” 

Adán nods.

“Yeah,” he says. He squints a little, smiles briefly as Sixto tackles Julio to the ground for nutmegging him. “We saw a lot of shit. Went through a lot of shit too.” Here he motions to the right side of his face, gives James a pointed glance. James almost reflexively reaches up to rub the scar that still mars his face.

“Yeah,” he responds, “Yeah, I hear you.” He huffs out a breath, presses his fingers to a bruise on the side of his knee. 

“I just. I was on _la bestia_ with a couple other guys and.” He shrugs, can almost smile at the memory of the conversation that Vicente and Sixto’s banter called up for him. “We looked out for each other. But we got separated once we got here. And I just wonder about them. You know?”

“You don’t know their full names?” Adán asks. James shakes his head. 

“They were from Brazil,” he replies, “That’s all I know.”

He pulls at his socks, just needing to do something with his hands.

“They saved my life,” he clarifies after a short pause, “So. I owe them everything.”

Adán hums in acknowledgment.

“I’m sorry, man,” he says, “That’s shitty.”

James appreciates that, appreciates the unadorned, unqualified affirmation.

“Thanks,” he replies, and he means it. 

“ _Yaaaaa gueyyy_!” 

Sixto comes sprinting over, Julio hot on his tail. The little Mexican slips on the grass as he tries to get behind James, gets a hand caught in James’ jersey, ends up pulling James over onto one side with his momentum. 

“Not cool!” James complains as Julio jumps on top of him in an attempt to get at Sixto. Adán jumps on top of Julio, and James puffs out his cheeks, not entirely pretending to be winded.

“Fuck all of you,” he groans in Spanish, “Seriously.”

“Man, you come over here and you look all sad and shit, what do you expect us to do?” Julio retorts.

“Not break my ribs, maybe?” 

Sixto, draped across his back, pushes at his head. 

“ _Guey_ ,” he says, “Come back and help me.”

James rests his head on his arms for a few seconds, thinks about how lucky he is.

“Fine,” he says, flailing back with one arm, “Help me up.”

-

That night, when he gets back to the group shelter that will be his home until he graduates high school, he calls his parents. Tells them about football, about the upcoming championship game. Tells them about school. Tells them, as he has so many times over the past two years, how much he misses them, how much he loves them, and how grateful he is. It’s easier now. The distance, the separation doesn’t hurt quite as badly as it used to. He doesn’t cry anymore, in part because the other boys in the shelter gave him shit for it.

But when he goes to bed that night, it takes him ages to fall asleep. When he wakes up the next morning, he’ll feel an exhaustion that seems to reach into the very core of his bones. And for the next few days, when he goes to practice after school, it takes extra effort for him to keep up with the jokes and the banter, to smile like he means it, to laugh.

-

_Los Angeles, California, USA_

“Hey.” 

Neymar turns his head to look across the darkened bedroom at the other bed, can just make out Philippe’s face.

“What’s up?” he asks. 

“…do you ever think about James?” Philippe asks after a short pause. 

Neymar looks back up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah. Every day.”

“Do you think…what do you think happened to him?”

“I don’t know. Something good, I hope.”

Covers rustle.

“Yeah,” Philippe sighs, “I hope so too.”

Pause.

“Do you think we’re going to win tomorrow?” 

Neymar manages a smile at that.

“I think we can,” he replies, “I don’t know if we will.”

“The other team, they’re supposed to be really good. Undefeated, no?”

“Well we would have been undefeated except for that shitty penalty call against Roosevelt.”

“Are you still mad about that?”

Neymar snorts.

“Are you kidding me?” he grumbles, “The guy dove so blatantly when I didn’t even touch him, and he knew it.”

Philippe laughs a little. More rustling of covers. 

“Well you just have to score the winner tomorrow then, to make up for it.”

“Uh, excuse me, I don’t lead the team in goals scored so I don’t think that’s my job.”

Philippe laughs again, self-consciously this time. 

“Yeah, but all your goals have been important ones,” he points out. 

Neymar hums in acknowledgment, lets his eyes drift closed. 

Silence.

“Hey, Neymar.”

“Mmm?”

“…nothing. ’Night, _mano_.” 

“’Night.”

-

_Valley Glen, California, USA_

Standing in the tunnel before the section final, waiting for game time, James is nervous. He feels restless and anxious. Needs to just get out and get the ball at his feet, get a few good passes under his belt. The stadium here at Los Angeles Valley College is bigger than any of the ones they’ve played in before, big enough to have a tunnel that they can actually walk out of, like a proper professional match. And judging by the crowd noise, the place is pretty full. 

He reaches up to his neck, touches his mother’s crucifix, hanging on a new chain now. Closes his eyes and says a quick prayer, not to win, but for strength, and for calm. 

-

“You slept last night,” Philippe notes as he wraps strips of tape around his ankles.

“Yeah.” Neymar holds out his hand for the roll of tape. “Had a good night.”

Philippe nods, doesn’t say anything more. Hands the tape over and stands up, strips off his practice jersey. As he turns to pick up his game jersey, Neymar sees, not for the first time, the scars lining his back. It reminds him how far Philippe has come. Forces him to think about how far he himself has to go. 

He leans down and tapes up his ankles, tosses the tape back into Philippe’s bag. 

“Ready?” Philippe asks, offering him a hand. Neymar takes it.

“Ready.”

-

The clack of studs on concrete behind him announces the arrival of their opponents. James doesn’t really pay much attention. Belmont High. Public school program, like Huntington Park. He knows about them, knows that they’re good, but then everyone they’ve played since the end of the regular season has been good. He does find it vaguely amusing that both of them are primarily Latino schools. No one does _fútbol_ like us, he thinks to himself. 

Spanish and English swirl in the air around him. James finds comfort in it, in his native language and the increasing familiarity of the Chicano-accented English and Spanglish that are so common in Los Angeles’ Latino neighborhoods. 

Under the Spanish, a murmur of something else, something that pulls at a deeper cord in the back of James’ mind. He glances sideways. 

And for a second or two, he’s speechless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _cascarita_ : Mexican slang for a pick-up football/soccer game  
> ** Lots of the kids coming across the border from Guatemala come from poor indigenous communities where Spanish is a second language to indigenous Mayan languages such as [Quiche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27iche%27_language), [Mam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mam_language), [Ixil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixil_language), [Kanjobal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%E2%80%99anjob%E2%80%99al_language) and others. 


	11. Chapter 11

“ _Puta madre_ ,” James says, his voice failing on the last syllable, and then Neymar is wrapping him up in a hug, solid and warm and _right fucking there_.

“Holy shit,” he says in English when Neymar draws back. Philippe pulls him in next, still small and a little wiry, but strong. And smiling. 

“I…holy shit,” James says again, suddenly a little breathless. He feels like laughing and crying at the same time.

“Is that all you’ve learned to say in English?” Philippe asks, in fluid, accented English. He wags a cheeky finger in James’ face, “Swearing is bad, _hombre_.” James pushes his hand away, grinning. 

“Sorry,” he says in Spanish, then in English, “I’m just. You know. Surprised.” Understatement of the year, he thinks. Shocked is probably a better description. In the best way possible. He never thought he would ever see them again.

“We looked at the roster,” Neymar admits, “But we never actually knew your last name so. We didn’t know it was you.”

“Yeah, same here,” James responds, “We just got the last names, and I didn’t know yours, either.”

“ _Que locura_ , eh?” Philippe says. He’s nothing like the quiet wisp of a kid that James remembers from _la bestia_. Everything about him is lively, energetic, confident. James is glad to see him like this.

“Listen, we’ll come find you after the game,” Neymar says, glancing over at the refs as they come down the line, “Don’t leave until I at least get your phone number.”

“Deal,” James says. 

“Don’t play too well,” Philippe teases as he and Neymar move back to their line. 

“No deal,” James retorts, and Philippe laughs, gives him a thumbs up. 

-

Neymar feels scattered for about the first ten minutes of the match, his emotions running wild. A couple easy passes skitter off his feet, and when he gets a shot on net, he drags it wide by a good yard and a half. He grunts out a curse, starts jogging backward to track the keeper’s restart. He gets about five feet before he collides with another person because he’s not looking where he’s going. 

Hands grab his shoulders to steady him.

“ _Tranquilo, mano_ ,” a familiar voice says. He glances over, and it’s James he’s run into. They’re wearing different jerseys, but James is smiling just a little.

“ _Tranquilo_ ,” he repeats, “It’s just _fútbol_ , yeah?” He pats a comforting hand in the small of Neymar’s back, jogs away. 

The next pass that comes to Neymar, he settles it comfortably, gets his head up, picks out a teammate’s run down the left wing, and chips the ball right into his path. The Huntington Park defender puts it out for a throw, but Neymar feels better.

-

Halftime comes and goes with no score. It’s a good game, Philippe thinks. Hard fought, but fair. Huntington Park are excellent, especially on the counterattack, and it hasn’t escaped Philippe’s notice that James is an essential part of that, constantly putting their defense under pressure with sudden bursts of pace, either with or without the ball. He’s already tested their keeper with a shot from 20 yards, and Philippe can see he’s angling to try again. 

The ball comes into play off a long throw. It skids off a Huntington Park head first and pops up in the air. Philippe tracks its arc, gets his feet planted, and jumps for it. At the last second, he sees the flash of orange in his peripheral vision, and he meets the ball at the same moment that he clatters into another body. He tumbles to the ground, lucky to land on his back rather than his head. The whistle blows, and he lays there for a second or two to regain his breath, then pushes himself up. 

A few feet away, the Huntington Park player that he ran into is lying on his back, one knee bent, arms over his face. Philippe winces, jogs over. Sees that it’s James. 

“Hey.” He places a hand on James’ chest to get his attention. “Alright?” James puffs out a deep breath, the kind that Philippe knows follows a painful stinger, but not a serious injury. 

“Alright?” he repeats, just to make sure. James nods, drops his arms. Philippe holds out a hand, and James takes it, lets Philippe help him to his feet. 

“Can’t believe you beat me to a header,” James mutters as he pulls up the hem of his jersey to wipe his face. Philippe just grins, jostles their shoulders together, then jogs back to set up for the free kick.

-

70th minute. Neymar can see what’s going to happen about five seconds before it does, and from his vantage point forty yards up the field, he can’t do anything about it. Huntington Park get the ball on the right wing, play a little one-two down the line to get in behind the defense. The winger plays a bouncing cutback into the 18 yard box. 

_Fuck_ , Neymar thinks. James goes streaking into the box, too fast for his marker to keep up, sells the shot with his right foot to send their entire defense and keeper the wrong way, then cuts it back instead and curls it into the far corner with his left. It’s a fucking fantastic goal. Neymar puts his hands on his head, turns away as James gets buried under a pile of teammates. 

Feels a flare of pride under the frustration. 

-

Ten minutes later, they equalize. It’s a shitty way to do so—a wobbly cross drops into the box and bounces off a defender’s shin, trickles into the far corner—but no one’s complaining. They’re still alive. They have a chance. 

-

Philippe’s been doing it all game, weaving through their defense before playing a wicked through ball or a delicate little chip over the top, so James gets why Julio and the others stand off a little bit, trying to anticipate where the pass is going to go. He sees Philippe flick his eyes up though, and realizes the error.

“Shot!” he yells from thirty yards away, but it’s too late. Philippe takes one more touch to set it up, and hits the shot from the top of the 18. It curls, curls, curls, right into the far top corner of the goal, and it might be the prettiest goal James has ever seen in a non-professional game. 

The whistle blows all of 30 seconds later. 

James kind of feels like he’s been sucker-punched in the gut, but at the same time, he can appreciate the quality of the goal, and the significance for the person who scored it. 

He trudges across the field, shakes hands with a couple of the Belmont players, pats his own keeper on the back. At the sideline, Philippe sees him coming, disentangles himself from a knot of teammates and jogs over, smile fading. 

“Hey, don’t do that,” James tells him as they embrace, “Don’t be feeling sorry for me.”

“Can’t help it,” Philippe mumbles, clasping his hands behind James’ back, “Sucks that it had to be you on the other side.” James smiles a little at his perfect use of English slang, even as he realizes that that kid he knew back in Mexico is still in there, carefully protected under new language, new culture, new persona. But definitely still in there. 

“Hey, _hombre_ ,” he says, “Listen.” He brings one hand up to rest at the back of Philippe’s neck, needs him to know how much he means what he’s about to say. “I know you’ve been through a lot. But you’re a hell of a player. And you deserve this. Alright?”

For a second or two, Philippe doesn’t say anything, just rests his forehead against James’ shoulder and breathes. Then he nods, steps back. 

“Go celebrate,” James tells him, shoving him lightly in the shoulder. Philippe half-smiles, appreciative and sad at the same time. Then his teammates are there, shaking James’ hand at the same time as they’re thumping Philippe on the back, and James can see the way Philippe’s smile changes, brightens in some ways, dims in others. He thinks that he and Neymar are probably the only ones who can see that. 

The aforementioned Brazilian accosts him before he gets too far. Wraps him up in another hug. 

“Your goal was pretty awesome,” he says, digging a knuckle into James’ shoulder. 

“Philippe’s was better,” James replies truthfully. Neymar shrugs. 

“Not by much,” he says, “You two on the same team would be scary.”

“You two on the same team was scary enough,” James points out. Neymar cracks a grin, pats his own chest. 

“Brazilians, you know?” He looks happy enough, but James reads something else in his expression.

“You two doing alright?” he asks. Neymar shrugs, his smile fading just slightly.

“Yeah, we’re alright.” 

James raises an eyebrow. Neymar shrugs again, holds out a pen and a piece of paper. 

“Phone number,” he orders. James doesn’t push any further, just obediently scribbles down his cell phone number, hands the paper back. Neymar gives him another hug before heading back to his own team, and by the time James gets back to his bag and digs out his phone, there’s already a text message waiting for him, complete with a selfie of Neymar mugging for the camera. 

_call me maybe?_

James smiles, writes back:

_count on it._


	12. Chapter 12

_Pasadena, California, USA_

None of them are old enough to drink legally yet, but they still go to a bar to watch Real play Barca. It’s strange, Philippe thinks, how normal the setting feels, the fancy décor, the finished tabletops, the sleek new hi-def TVs lining the walls. Two years ago, he couldn’t have even imagined a place like this, much less imagined himself sitting down in such a place and ordering food. 

“Aren’t we high class,” James observes after they order. 

“Did you see they had tamales on the menu?” Neymar asks with a smile, “Bet they aren’t half as good as the ones we got on the way up here.”

“Yeah, no way,” James agrees, “Nothing like the real thing.”

“So who are we supporting?” Philippe asks as the lineups flash on the screens around the bar. 

“Real,” James replies, at the same time that Neymar says, “Barca.” They look at each other, and then James turns to Philippe, points at him. 

“Tiebreaker,” he says. Philippe raises his hands, palms out, as if to hold them at bay.

“I’m not getting involved,” he says, “Neutral.”

“You can’t be neutral in a _clásico_!” Neymar protests. 

“Watch me,” Philippe retorts. Neymar shakes his head, throws an arm around James’ shoulders.

“You know, even if you are a _madridista pendejo_ , at least I can respect you for having _some_ type of loyalty,” he declares. 

“Wow, fuck you,” Philippe groans, balling up a napkin and chucking it at Neymar’s head. Neymar ducks, nearly falls out of his chair in the process, and Philippe laughs so hard his stomach hurts. 

The game kicks off soon after. Philippe thinks briefly about where he was the last time he watched the _clásico_ , and who he was with, feels a pang of yearning. But he watches Neymar poke James repeatedly in the side as Real take a corner kick, watches James wrap him up in a retaliatory headlock. And he thinks to himself that this is also something worth holding on to.

-

At halftime, it’s tied 1-1. Neymar gets up to go to the bathroom, and Philippe orders them some more food for the second half, since all of them have money saved up from summer jobs 

James takes a sip of water, meets Philippe’s eyes over the rim of the glass. 

“How is he?” he asks, setting the glass back down. Philippe’s not surprised by the question; James, he’s come to realize, is quite perceptive. 

“Depends on the day,” he responds, “Today’s a good day.”

“What’s a bad day look like?”

“Wakes up with nightmares, or he doesn’t sleep at all, so he can’t stay awake in class. Barely talks. Says he’s fine.”

James glances over at the hallway leading to the bathroom.

“Is he seeing anyone? Like, _un consejero_ or something?”

Philippe shakes his head. 

“He says he’s alright.”

James toys with his water glass, drumming his fingers along the sides. 

“How about you?” he asks after a few moments, looking up at Philippe, “Things are okay?” His eyes are kind, but not pitying, which Philippe appreciates. 

“I’m good,” Philippe responds, and he means it, “Things are good. It was rough at the start, you know. But it got better.”

James nods.

“And you?” Philippe asks. James smiles a little.

“Same. Some days are better than others,” he offers with a shrug, “But yeah. At the beginning, it was mostly bad days. Now it’s mostly good days.”

“Progress,” Philippe comments. James nods.

Neymar comes back then, squeezes James’ shoulders, shakes him a little.

“Visca Barca!” he declares, dodging James’ retaliatory swat.

“Hala Madrid,” James retorts. 

Philippe watches them banter back and forth, punctuating their jibes with hands on each other’s shoulders or elbows in each other’s ribs. It’s the most he’s seen Neymar smile in ages, and he’s so, so grateful that god, or fate, or whoever is in control of their destiny saw fit to bring them together again.

-

_Los Angeles, California, USA_

Neymar comes home late from school one afternoon after a meeting with his history teacher and finds Philippe sitting on the front steps, phone to his ear. He’s talking in Portuguese, which means he’s talking to his brothers, something he does about every three days. 

Early on, Philippe would often lapse into silence, just clutching the phone like a lifeline, listening. He’d be quiet for days after those calls. These days, the conversations are easy and fluid, the way Neymar imagines they were before Philippe left. 

Today though, Philippe looks serious, if not sad. He glances up when he sees Neymar coming up the walk, straightens a little. 

“Yeah,” he says into the phone, “Yeah…Leandro, I should go. Yeah. I’ll…yeah, this weekend. Okay. _Tchau_.”

He hangs up the call as Neymar takes a seat next to him.

“What’s up with them?” Neymar asks, shrugging off his backpack.

“Not much,” Philippe says, “Working. The usual.”

“So if you get U.S. citizenship, you can apply for them to come here, right?” Neymar asks. He remembers something like that from Philippe’s court case. Their immigration statuses aren’t quite the same, and each of them has some benefits that the other one doesn’t.* 

“Yeah. I don’t know if they’d want to though,” Philippe admits. 

Neymar nods, understands. Life might not be great back in Brazil, but it’s still home. He wouldn’t have left if he’d thought he had any other choice. 

“What else did you guys talk about?” he asks, lapsing into Portuguese without even realizing it. 

Philippe opens his mouth to answer, then closes it. Tucks the corner of his lower lip into his mouth.

“What?” Neymar asks, momentarily concerned. Philippe shrugs.

“Just. We were talking about you, actually.”

Neymar stiffens.

“What about me?”

Philippe looks over at him. The worry and sadness in his expression makes him look painfully young, and Neymar deflates a little.

“That you’re not sleeping.”

Neymar sucks in a breath. He feels trapped, all of a sudden, even though it’s broad daylight and they’re sitting outside. 

“It’s just…bad dreams,” he says. 

“Bad dreams?” Philippe asks, “Or bad memories?” 

“Does it matter?” Neymar asks in reply. It comes out more sharply than he intends. 

“You’re not sleeping,” Philippe points out, apparently unfazed, “So yeah. I’d say it matters. Bad dreams, those go away on their own. Bad memories…” He trails off. 

Neymar stares down the front sidewalk of their foster parents’ home. He doesn’t know what to say, how to react, because the rational part of him understands that Philippe is worried about him, but the other part of him, the part that wakes him up in the middle of the night is screaming at him that he’s not safe, this situation’s not safe, he needs to get out of it now. 

“I’m fine,” he says, and even to himself his voice sounds hollow, “I just need some time.”

It’s an idiotic excuse, he knows, because this has been going on for two years now, but his brain is too busy putting up defense walls around those things that he’s shoved into the deepest, darkest corners of his memory to do much else. 

Philippe doesn’t say anything in response. They sit there in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Philippe gets to his feet. As he turns to go back into the house, he rests a hand on Neymar’s shoulder. Then he leaves, and Neymar is left to ponder how and when their roles reversed, how and when it became Philippe looking out for him, instead of him looking out for Philippe.

-

James discovered Griffith Park early on, when he first arrived in Los Angeles. He was never much of a runner in Colombia, but these days he finds it a good way to gather his thoughts, and the park has plenty of trails that, on an early weekend morning like this, aren’t at all crowded. 

This morning he has company. He had invited both Neymar and Philippe with him, but only Philippe had taken him up on it. They’ve gone about two and a half miles already, and James is starting to feel the fatigue in his calves, but Philippe is still moving easily ahead of him, skipping up the increasingly sharp slope. 

They get to an overlook, and when Philippe glances over his shoulder, James makes a ‘T’ with his hands.

“Time out,” he says, clasping his hands behind his head to open his lungs up. Philippe flashes him a sly grin.

“You _delanteros_ have no stamina,” he says, barely sounding winded, “Midfielders on the other hand—“

“Shut up,” James interrupts, stifling a grin of his own, “Give me some of that.” He holds out his hands. Philippe’s carrying a water bottle, and he tosses it to James, who catches it gratefully. 

Philippe turns his attention to the city, stretched out below them. There’s a little bit of fog in the air, making the whole scene softer than usual, and James watches his expression turn pensive. 

“It’s kind of crazy, huh?” he says, wiping a trickle of sweat from his cheek, “That we’re here.”

“Yeah,” James agrees. 

“…sometimes I feel really old,” Philippe says after a pause, “Like, in school, people are talking about prom and like, going to the beach and…yeah. I don’t know.”

“I get it,” James says, and he does, he really does. It’s hard to relate to people whose biggest concerns are who they’re going to the next school dance with. It’s not an indictment of them, it’s just. Different. He wishes that was the biggest thing he worried about, ever had to worry about. 

“Have you told anyone else?” he asks, rolling his ankles to try and release some of the tightness, “About, like…coming up on the train and stuff?”

“No. Just my counselor.”

James curls his lower lip between his teeth, wonders if he’s going to regret what he’s about to say next.

“Neymar told me,” he says after a moment, “About…about what happened to you. In Mexico. And how he met you.”

Philippe looks over at him, then turns back to the city. A cord of tension appears briefly along his jawline, then relaxes.

“I’m glad he told you,” he says eventually, “I don’t think I could have told you myself. Even though I wanted you to know”

James aches a little, understands that, even as far as Philippe has come, even as well as he’s doing, this is a burden, a weight he’ll carry with him the rest of his life. 

“What are you doing after this?” Philippe asks, turning fully towards James and holding out his hands. 

“Going back,” James says, pitching the water bottle back to him, “Do some homework, probably. Why?”

“You should come over for lunch. Bring your homework. You can help me with my trig problem set.” 

“Yes to lunch. No to trig.”

“Aww, come on.”

“Philippe, do you have any idea how bad I am at math? Trust me, you don’t want my help.”

They do a slow, easy jog back down the way they came, and by the time they reach the bottom of the path, James has somehow been roped into agreeing to help Philippe with his trigonometry homework.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Some of the kids arriving at the border are (eventually) getting asylum, which allows them to apply to bring family members over once they’re granted. Other kids are getting what’s called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), which only allows them to apply for their siblings after they have become U.S. citizens.


	13. Chapter 13

_Los Angeles, California, USA_

James is happy to escape the shelter for lunch—Saturday lunches are usually tuna salad. Not his favorite, by any stretch of means. He’s also glad that the shelter gives him a measure of autonomy, now that he’s 18. He’s still a resident, still bound by curfews and house rules, but the strictures that he had to abide by while he was under 18—permission to go out, limits on where he could go, and with whom—have been scaled back, especially since he hasn’t had any problems. 

Neymar and Philippe’s foster home is small but comfortable, and their foster mom is no-nonsense and kind. She asks Philippe to help her with lunch, and he obliges without complaint. There’s an ease in their interaction, a familiarity that James envies. At the same time, he’s grateful for her, and her husband, knows they must have been the ones taking Philippe and Neymar to their court dates and lawyer meetings, getting them enrolled in school, helping them with their homework. 

“Neymar?” he asks as Philippe sets glasses on the table. 

“Went back to sleep,” his foster mother replies. Philippe meets James’ eyes.

“Nightmares?” James asks quietly in Spanish, even though he imagines their foster mother already knows. Philippe nods before heading back to the kitchen. 

-

He’s trapped. Nowhere to go. Dark. A hand gathering his wrists together, pinning them above his head. A piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth. Hard to breathe. 

A hand under his shirt. Hot breath on his face. Smells like cigarettes. He tries to turn away. 

Hand at his hip now. Undoing his jeans. Touching. 

_Relax. You might even enjoy it._

Turned around. Jeans stripped away. Exposed. Spitting sound. 

Wet. Fingers. Hurts. 

_Relax._

Leg between his. Kicking his feet apart. Hand on his back, rucking up his shirt. Bending him over. 

Pain. _Pain._

A scream forces its way out of his throat.

Neymar. _Neymar._

“Neymar.”

His eyes fly open and James’ face is above him. For a second he’s disoriented, thinks he’s back on the train. Then he registers that there’s ceiling above him, not sky, and he remembers where he is. 

He’s breathing hard, his throat sore, and the look on James’ face is…Neymar doesn’t even know how to describe it. Gentle. Pained. A few feet behind him, Philippe is leaning against the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, looking down at the ground. 

Belatedly, Neymar realizes there are tears on his cheeks. He scrubs a hand across his face, flooded with shame. 

“Is it lunch time?” he asks, not looking at either of them. 

“Neymar,” James says, his voice low, “ _Hombre_.”

Neymar shakes his head sharply. He has to get out of here. He shoves back the covers, pushes past James and then Philippe as he all but runs out of the room and out of the house entirely, barely remembering to put shoes on as he does. 

-

Two hours later, James finds him at a park four blocks away. Philippe’s instinct that this was where he’d be was spot on. There’s a soccer field here, and some playground equipment. Neymar is sitting at the bottom of a set of bleachers that have seen far better days. He sees James when he’s about halfway across the field, but makes no move to get up and leave. James takes that as a good sign. 

“Was getting worried,” he says as he reaches the bleachers. Neymar shrugs.

“Shouldn’t have.” 

“Can’t help it,” James replies, taking a seat next to him. Neymar doesn’t respond, just rests his elbows on his knees and lowers his head. 

A long silence follows. There’s barely any breeze tonight, and it still amazes James that even here in the heart of the city, the air can feel so quiet and still. 

“ _Hombre_ ,” James says eventually, and it comes out like a sigh, “Talk to me, _porfa_.”

Neymar shifts a little.

“Where’s Philippe?” he asks.

“At the house.” James pauses. “He guessed you might be here. He thought maybe I should try talking to you alone.”

Neymar makes a non-committal sound, hunches over, if possible, even further. James sets his elbows on his knees as well, holds his clasped hands against his mouth while he tries to find the words. 

“ _Mira, hombre_ …I know…I know it’s hard, yeah? Everything. Everything’s hard. I know you been through a lot—

“No.” Neymar cuts him off, his voice hard and low. Angry. “You don’t know.”

“Neymar—“

“You don’t know,” Neymar repeats, shooting to his feet, “You have no fucking idea.”

“Then tell me,” James replies sharply, standing up as well. If this is where their conversation has to go, then fine. He’ll go there.

A pause. And then—

“You don’t know shit, alright?” Neymar spits, his face contorted like he’s in pain, “So just back off.” He shoves James hard in the chest. James shoves him right back. Okay, he thinks, alright.

“You think I’m stupid?” James snaps. He doesn’t feel good about doing this, about pushing Neymar to the edge like this, but if that’s what it takes, then okay. 

“I was awake, alright?” he says, “That night. On _la bestia_. I heard what they were saying. And you know that I know what they did to you. I was awake when you came back, too, remember?”

He pauses.

“And…fuck, _mano_ , if you think I’m going to judge for that then…then I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you think like that.”

Neymar looks frozen for a long second. Then he pushes his forearm into James’ chest, shoving him again, but with less force this time.

“You don’t know shit,” he repeats harshly, “You don’t know what they—what I _let_ them do to me.”

James lets that sink in for a moment.

“They didn’t give you a choice,” he says after a long pause, “ _Te iban a_ …they were going to kill you. And us.”

Neymar stares back at him, eyes bright, lower lip trembling just slightly. The silence hangs heavy between them. 

“ _No puedo_ ,” he says abruptly, shaking his head, “I can’t.” He turns away, stalks off across the field. James goes after him, grabs him by the shoulder. Neymar lashes out with a fist, and James dodges the half-hearted attempt, holds his hands up, placating, surrendering. 

“Listen, _mano_ , listen,” he says as firmly as he can, “Just, let me say this, and then, _te dejo_ , okay?”

Neymar eyes him with something like suspicion, which cuts deeper than James would like to admit. Then he waves a hand in the air, a sort of “go ahead” motion.

James takes a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me,” he says, half in Spanish, half in English, and it’s an apology that’s been eating away at him for two years, an apology he wasn’t sure he’d ever get a chance to make, and his voice is already trembling by the third word, “I’m sorry I didn’t try and help you that night. That’s on me. If…if you don’t want anything to do with me after this because of that then…okay. But.”

Neymar shakes his head a little. James isn’t sure what that means, but he hasn’t walked away yet. He blinks hard, his throat straining with emotion. 

“I’m …I call my parents at night and I can’t tell them what happened to me. What happened to us.” James feels heat welling under his eyelids, swipes roughly at his eyes with one hand. “I tell my therapist, but she wasn’t there. She doesn’t know how fucking scary it was, every day. I still…I still wake up in the middle of the night because I think I’m back on _la bestia_ , or getting beat up by _mareros_.”

In the fading sunlight, James can see a single tear etch a silvery trail down Neymar’s face.

“You’re the closest thing I have to a brother,” he says, breath hitching in his chest, “And I just. I want you to be okay, _sabes_? _Si no para m_ i, then…at least for Philippe. He needs you. Because you’re the only one who gets it.”

Neymar’s looking away now. James takes another deep breath, trying to get his composure back.

“That’s all, _mano_ ,” he concludes, “ _Ya está. Te dejo_ , okay? I’m sorry.”

-

Neymar watches him walk away. Hates himself for this, for making James think that this is his fault, for not being stronger, for not being able to move on. 

Because he’s tried so hard to be strong, to be brave, to do the right thing and to deal with whatever comes his way. And he knows he’s not okay, he knows it.

He just doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand where he went wrong. He was trying so hard. 

-

For a couple days, Philippe doesn’t hear Neymar utter a single word. The silence around him is heavy, suffocating. 

James texts him once, asks how Neymar is doing. 

_I don’t know_ , Philippe replies honestly. James doesn’t reply, and for a moment, Philippe worries, selfishly, that he’s going to lose James as well as Neymar, that they’ve found each other again just in time to be driven apart. He’ll get through it, he thinks, like he’s gotten through everything else. 

It still hurts though, to think about. 

On the night of day three, Philippe is just about to doze off when Neymar finally breaks his silence. 

“When’s your next counselor appointment?” he asks in Portuguese. His voice is gravelly from disuse. 

“Friday.” Philippe hasn’t pushed him for anything over the last few days, and he doesn’t do so now either.

“…Can I go with you?”


	14. Chapter 14

_Long Beach, California, USA_

It’s not totally unusual for big school coaches or scouts to come around to Long Beach City College’s men’s soccer games. James knows they’ve sent a few players on to full-on college careers at places like Santa Barbara, USC and others. 

As he trudges off the field after a hard-fought win over Oxnard though, he sees a Latino man wearing a UCLA jacket talking with Coach Andrade, their head coach here at Long Beach, and when they see him coming off the field, his coach waves him over. 

That, James thinks, is pretty unusual. 

When he reaches them, the man in the UCLA jacket holds out his hand, introduces himself in Spanish.

“Jorge Ibanez,” he says, “I’m the head coach of the men’s soccer team at UCLA.”

James shakes his hand, introduces himself. UCLA, he thinks. That’s Division I. And not just Division I, but one of the best DI programs in the country. 

“I was just talking to Coach Andrade about you,” Jorge tells him, switching over to English, “You have a few minutes to chat?”

James glances up in the stands to where he knows Philippe and Neymar are sitting. They catch him looking, start making idiotic faces at him. He stifles a laugh, turns his attention back to Coach Ibanez.

“Sure.”

“Heck of a goal you scored,” Coach Ibanez says as Coach Andrade steps away to have a quick chat with the rest of the team. 

“Thanks.”

“Were you recruited at all out of high school?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did any other Division I schools try to get you to play for them?”

James laughs a little at that.

“No, Coach, I played for Huntington Park. We didn’t get a lot of scouts coming around our neighborhood.”

Coach Ibanez looks at him carefully. 

“Had any trouble?” he asks after a moment.

“What kind of trouble?” James asks in reply, but he thinks he already knows what the coach is getting at.

“Like if I look your name up in the California court system, am I going to find anything?” 

James decides he likes this man. He’s like Coach Andrade—direct, no bullshit, authoritative without being dictatorial.

“No, but I was in immigration court when I first got here,” he says, “I didn’t come here with any papers.”

Coach Ibanez smiles, and it’s kind.

“Looks like they didn’t succeed in kicking you out of the country,” he says in Spanish. James smiles, shakes his head.

“No, they tried really hard though.”

Coach Ibanez digs into his jacket pocket, comes up with a business card, holds it out.

“Call me,” he says as James takes the card, “I’m serious. I want to talk to you some more about coming to UCLA and playing for us. You could get a full four years of eligibility as a transfer, and I think you’ve got what it takes.”

James shakes his hand, thanks him, watches him walk away. Can hardly believe that that just happened. 

By the time he gets back to his bag, most of his teammates are gone, but Philippe and Neymar are leaning over the chain-link fence that separates the field from the surrounding track and the stands. 

“So what was that all about?” Neymar asks. 

“He’s uh…he’s the coach for UCLA,” James responds, making sure to tuck the card carefully into his bag so he doesn’t lose it, “Wants to talk to me about playing for them.”

“Shit man, that’s big league style,” Neymar exclaims, “Hey, just don’t forget about us when you’re all famous.” 

James pushes affectionately at the side of his head, sits down to pull off his boots and shinguards.

The change in Neymar is, he thinks, is astonishing. The boy—young man, really—bantering away with Philippe behind him is nothing like the kid he was reunited with almost a year ago. Gone is the thousand yard stare, the almost haunted look in his eyes. Gone are the sleepless nights, the flashbacks. In its place are a sharp sense of humor, and a confidence that borders on cocky, but in a good way, a way that makes everyone around him feel confident too. He’s running away with the Los Angeles City scoring title, and Belmont are expected to run away with the boy’s soccer championship again as well.

“Hey man,” James says, standing up so he can pull his jersey off, “What’d you do to your hair?”

Neymar pats the half-mohawk, half-fade haircut he’s sporting.

“Like it?” he asks.

“It looks like a dead animal,” Philippe snipes, before James can respond. Neymar spouts off something undoubtedly rude in Portuguese, and Philippe retorts, feigning anger for all of two seconds before he breaks into a grin, sticking his tongue between his teeth. 

They can still be reflective, all of them, and when Neymar gets into that mode, especially after particularly difficult sessions with his therapist, he can really sink into it, sometimes goes quiet for a day or two. But it’s not anything like it used to be. 

“Hey, James.” James pulls his own shirt down over his head and raises his eyebrows at Philippe.

“When you talk to the UCLA guy,” Philippe says, “Put in a good word for me, yeah?”

“Me too,” Neymar adds.

“Leave him out of it,” Philippe deadpans, shoving Neymar in the shoulder, “Por favor.” 

“Ouch, I’m so hurt,” Neymar groans, leaning heavily against Philippe and clutching his chest. Philippe largely ignores him, stumbling just a little.

“Do you have to go with the team for dinner?” he asks James. James shakes his head. Neymar straightens up, throws an arm around Philippe’s shoulders. 

“Come eat with us,” he suggests, “We found this awesome Mexican place. It’s right near your dorm, and their tamales are fucking amazing.”

As if James could possibly say no.

-

_Los Angeles, California, USA_

It’s early evening. Friday night. They’re hanging out in front of their foster home. Philippe’s perched on the trunk of the old Honda Civic that Neymar bought last summer in order to get to work, soccer and school more easily. Neymar himself is leaning against the bumper, arms crossed. 

“Gonna score a hat trick tomorrow?” Philippe asks.

“Yeah, maybe,” Neymar replies, “Quit giving me passes on my left foot though. I’m shit at shooting with my left.”

“I’m just helping you improve,” Philippe jibes.

Neymar grumbles, kicks a rock with the toe of his shoe. 

“Talk to James?” he asks, watching the rock skitter away.

“Yeah, he’s visiting the UCLA campus tomorrow,” Philippe replies, “Said he’d try and stop by our game afterward, if he has time.”

“ _Hijoeputa_ ,” Neymar says, sounding affectionate, “UCLA. What’s that saying in English…rags to riches?”

“Yeah,” Philippe replies, “Something like that.” 

“I’m happy for him,” Neymar says, “He deserves it, no?”

“Definitely.” Philippe quietly thinks that Neymar would deserve it too, hopes that James will in fact put in a good word for him—for them—with the UCLA coach. 

A few yards down, a mom and dad are playing soccer with their three kids. Philippe watches the oldest, maybe 10 years old, maneuver the ball between his brothers and toe-poke a goal past his dad. 

“Future striker in the making,” he observes. 

Neymar hums in agreement. Philippe looks over at him, recognizes the expression on his face as one that’s going to lead to a conversation with a capital C. 

“What’s up?” he asks. 

Neymar shrugs. Philippe waits. Six months ago, it would have been 50-50 whether he’d get anything more than that, but these days, he generally gets an answer, even if it’s just, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Can I ask you something?” Neymar asks. 

“ _Claro_.”

“Do you ever think about like…like, how you’re ever gonna be able to relate to people after…after?”

As far as Neymar has come in the last year, Philippe knows that figuring him out is still largely an exercise in reading between the lines. There’s a code to his words and sentences, layers of meaning that aren’t meant to confuse so much as to protect. Philippe can’t always decipher it all.

But this time, he nods, says, “Yeah,” because he’s pretty sure he knows what Neymar is talking about, and he also thinks that this might be the closest Neymar has ever come to telling him what happened to him. Philippe has his suspicions, has heard the things his countryman used to shout in his sleep, but Neymar’s never told him in full.

“Sometimes I don’t think…” Neymar lapses into Portuguese, like he often does when he talks about _la bestia_ and Brazil and the trip north, “I don’t think I could ever be like…married, you know? Or in a relationship.”

Philippe stays quiet. Neymar looks down at his feet.

“…like, how can you be with someone and…I don’t know, have a family if you can’t…” 

“…can’t?” Philippe prompts gently

Neymar shrugs again. Doesn’t say anything for almost thirty seconds. 

“I almost wish they had drugged me,” he says eventually. He looks over at Philippe, and one corner of his mouth is pulled tight in a regretful wince. 

“Sorry,” he adds quietly. Philippe shakes his head. He understands. He understands everything that Neymar’s just told him, and it hurts, maybe more than he was expecting it to, to have his suspicions confirmed, but he would never put that on Neymar, not now, not ever. 

He drops a hand on Neymar’s shoulder, leaves it there for a few seconds, hopes it conveys everything he can’t put into words—empathy and gratitude and strength and non-judgment.

“Head inside?” he asks. Neymar uncrosses his arms, nods. 

Half an hour later, they’re sprawled across the couch in the living room, playing video games. Neymar hasn’t said much since they came in from outside, but when Philippe runs Neymar’s on-screen character off the racing track, Neymar kicks his foot. Philippe suppresses a grin, weaves his character back and forth on the screen until Neymar’s character gets lifted back onto the track. 

“Ready for this?” Philippe asks. He mashes a button on his controller, and an animated shell goes flying across the screen.

“No!” Neymar cries in mock horror as the shell hits his character, sends it flying up in the air. He tosses his controller aside, grabs Philippe in a headlock. The game is abandoned as they tumble onto the floor with a thump. 

“Play nice, boys,” their foster mother calls from the kitchen. When she comes in a few minutes later to check on them, Philippe’s hair is a chaotic mess, and Neymar’s got a rug burn on his cheek, and their on-screen characters have been beaten by the computer players, but they’re both grinning from ear to ear.

-

_Long Beach, California, USA_

“So he really wants you to come play for him, huh?”

Neymar looks across the table at the little hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant that they’re sitting at, eyebrows raised expectantly. James shrugs.

“Yeah,” he says, almost like he doesn’t believe it himself, “And the campus is awesome. Super fancy.”

“How much does it cost?” Philippe asks, reaching across Neymar to get at one of the side dishes.

“Nothing,” James responds.

“Wait, what?” Neymar stares at him, not quite understanding. 

“Full ride scholarship,” James clarifies, “Everything paid for.”

“Everything?” Philippe echoes. James nods, and Neymar stares at him for another five seconds.

“So you said yes, right?” he says finally. James shrugs again, and Neymar kicks him under the table. James laughs through a mostly-feigned grimace, reaches down to rub his shin.

“That hurt,” he grumbles, wrinkling his nose at Neymar, who waves him off.

“If you said no to that, I’m going to kick you again,” Neymar says, and he means it. 

“Yeah man, I’m kind of with him on this,” Philippe interjects, tilting his head in Neymar’s direction. James chases a stray piece of meat around his plate with his chopsticks, lower lip curled between his teeth, a sure sign of uncertainty. 

“I don’t know,” he says after a short silence, setting his chopsticks down and leaning his elbows on the table, “Don’t you think if something seems too good to be true, it probably is?”

“I mean, maybe if it was some random guy from a college you never heard of before,” Neymar allows, “But UCLA, _hombre_. That just means you’re that good, you know?”

James shrugs for a third time. 

“ ’m just not used to it, I guess,” he says, drawing an aimless pattern on the table with the ring of condensation from his water glass, “Like, I can think of all the bad things that could happen, but not the good.”

Neymar thinks about countless meetings with his therapist, long discussions about defense mechanisms and trauma and relearning what it means to be safe. Philippe catches his eye across the table, raises one eyebrow, as if to say, ‘do you want to tell him, or should I?’ Neymar kicks James again, more gently this time.

“Ow,” James complains anyways. 

“ _Mira hombre_ ,” Neymar says, “Bad things can always happen. But you shouldn’t let that direct your life. Especially when a lot of good things could happen, too.”

James smiles a little, perhaps in acknowledgment of the role reversal, of Neymar delivering, albeit much more gently, the needed slap upside the head. 

“And if you tell the coach how awesome we are, maybe we’ll come join you next year,” Philippe adds, leaning forward, “Call him back. Tell him yes. And tell us when the games are so we can come watch.” 

He picks up his chopsticks, eyes James’ half-full rice bowl.

“You gonna eat the rest of that?” he asks. 

James rolls his eyes, but hands the bowl over.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This final part was harder to write than I expected, I think in part because I ended up enjoying writing these characters so much that I didn't really want to conclude their stories. Mil gracias to those who read, and left kudos and comments. <3 I'm not super active, but if you're so inclined, you can find me on tumblr under the same name as my pseud. Many thanks.

_**Three Years Later** _  
_Phoenix, Arizona, USA_

It’s a vicious tackle, studs up, right at knee level. Philippe tries to skip away, as James has often seen him do, both as an opponent and more recently as a teammate, but doesn’t quite make it. The only saving grace is that his legs aren’t planted in the turf when he gets hit. The force of the contact upends him in mid-air, and he slams to the turf, sickeningly hard. James is already running from his vantage point fifteen yards away as the bench and the crowd erupt, but Neymar still gets there a split second ahead of him, shoves the offending player so hard that he stumbles and almost falls. 

“You motherfucker,” Neymar spits as James grabs him by the collar of his jersey to try and pull him back, “You could break his leg like that, _hijo de puta_!” 

Part of James is right there with Neymar, wants to sock the opposing player in the mouth for what he just did. But part of him, the part that feels the weight of the captain’s armband on his right bicep recognizes the need for calmer heads to prevail. 

It’s not the first time they’ve gotten in a fight for each other. Two years ago, in their first season together at UCLA, a Washington State player grabbed James by the throat and called him a spic. Neymar got a red card for the punch he threw in response, and Philippe got a yellow card for threatening in no uncertain terms to do the same. Last season, a Utah player scythed Neymar down from behind after he’d scored a hat trick and was going for a fourth. James got a yellow card for balling a fist in the guy’s jersey and telling him he’d fuck him up if he pulled something like that again.

But here, now, there’s a national championship on the line, and the fact is that UCLA are far better off with Neymar on the field than in the locker room.

“ _Ya mano_ ,” James says, getting in between Neymar and the Indiana player. He wraps an arm around Neymar’s shoulders, pulls him forcefully away from the confrontation. “ _Ya_. We need you _aquí_ , okay?”

Neymar growls something in Portuguese, but raises his hands up to show he’s got himself under control. James lets him go, gives him a gentle shove in Philippe’s direction.

He has a brief powwow with the ref, the end result of which is a red card for the Indiana player, a yellow for Neymar, and very nearly a yellow for James himself when he responds in kind to some choice words from his opponent. 

As he walks away, breathing deeply to try and regain his focus, James looks up at the scoreboard – UCLA 0, Indiana 0, 6:04 left of the 90, and it reminds him that he has a job to do, that they do. They didn’t go undefeated this season just to let it all slip away at the very end. They were here last year and got undone by an Indiana team that had their number from the very first minute. Now it’s a revancha, a rematch, in the fucking national title game of all things, and James knows that this year they’re the better team, knows they have what it takes, physically and mentally, to redeem themselves.

By the time he joins Neymar, Philippe is already sitting up, right knee bent, left leg straight out in front of him. The opponent’s studs have sliced a nasty-looking gash into the side of his leg, and James leans over just in time to hear the trainer declare that he needs at least a stitch or two to close it up.

“No, fuck that,” Philippe says immediately, “Just put something on it so I can play the rest of the game.” He grabs one of the water bottles from the trainer’s kit, wets the edge of his shorts to wash out a splatter of blood there.

“ _Mano_ , let him stitch you up,” James interjects, “It’ll take thirty seconds.”

Philippe grimaces, looks at the trainer for confirmation, then looks up at James, holds out a hand.

“Fine,” he says as James pulls him to his feet, hops a little, grits his teeth, “But when I get back on, get me the fucking ball. I’m gonna put it on a plate for you or Neymar.”

James pats him on the chest in acknowledgment, watches him limp to the sideline to get treated, and thinks to himself, for neither the first, nor the last time, that Philippe is one tough son of a bitch.

“Hey.” Neymar appears at his shoulder, his expression hard. “Let’s go full press on these _pendejos_. We can do it for 6 minutes, no sweat.” James rolls his ankles and stretches his calves a little, grateful for countless off-season runs in Griffith Park, with Philippe pushing both him and Neymar to do an extra half mile here or an extra quarter mile there, to push to the next overlook instead of stopping at the first one. 

“Alright,” he says, “No foul though.”

Neymar nods, already moving away. He’s laser-focused, a sharp contrast to the laid-back, humor-driven off-field personality that’s shone through more and more as time has gone on. James is used to it, the almost Jekyll and Hyde transformation between Neymar hanging out in their off-campus apartment and Neymar at game time. James watches him walk away, catalogs the set of his shoulders, the confidence in his stride, and thinks, _yeah, we’re gonna win this._

Thirty seconds later, Neymar almost does win it for them. He steals the ball off an Indiana defender at full sprint and goes straight for goal, catching the keeper off his line. The ball pings agonizingly off the crossbar, and Neymar pulls his jersey up over his face as the UCLA fans in the bleachers groan in disappointment. 

James almost gets one to go a minute or so after that, jumps on a loose ball near the top of the 18 and hits it first time, aiming for the far post. A defender gets a piece of it, deflects it out for a throw, and clips James’ ankle on the follow through. Adrenaline numbs most of the pain, and James doesn’t waste any more energy on being pissed, just throws himself at the corner when it flies in. A defender just barely beats him to it, but James can sense it—they’re close. 

Philippe sprints back onto the field with 2 minutes to go, a couple pieces of tape circling his knee to hold a bandage in place over his stitches. Neymar has the ball on the right touchline, and Philippe works into space, demands the pass. They work a quick one-two to beat one defender, and then two red shirts converge on Philippe.

“Man on!” James hollers, wincing in anticipation. 

Somehow, though, Philippe gets between the two Indiana players unscathed and with the ball still at his feet. A roar goes up from the UCLA fans. One of the defenders gets a handful of Philippe’s jersey, tries to haul him down. Philippe shrugs him off, gets free 25 yards out, and James kicks from a fast jog into a full on sprint, getting at least two steps on the defender trying to mark him. 

“ _Ya me viste_!” he yells, voice cracking with the exertion. Philippe gets his head up, sees him. 

“ _Ya_!” James shouts again. He can feel the defender closing the distance. “ _Ya_!!”

Philippe hits the cross, a low hard curler bending beautifully into that no-man’s land between the keeper and his defenders, and everything sort of happens at once. James pulls up on his sprint just a fraction, gauging the speed and path of the pass. Neymar blazes into the penalty area, a streak of blue in James’ peripheral vision. The ball arrives. Operating on instinct and muscle memory more than anything else, James gets his hips squared, one-touches the ball back across the face of goal with the inside of his boot. The keeper is frozen, pulled too far out of position by James’ run, and Neymar keeps his cool even as two Indiana defenders throw themselves at him, redirects the ball calmly into the open net. 

The stadium explodes with noise. Neymar wheels away from the goal and runs straight for Philippe, who’s on his knees near the sideline, fists clenched at shoulder level, blood seeping unnoticed through the bandage on his leg. As Neymar gets to him, he looks briefly skyward, then buries his face in his hands, and James reaches them a second later with a lump in his throat. 

For a second or two, it’s just them, just the three of them, heads bent together, arms around shoulders, quiet and still against a backdrop of noise and color and commotion. Tomorrow, the back page of the Los Angeles Times will carry a color snapshot of the moment above the fold, with the headline, “Trio Propels UCLA to National Title.” ESPN will eventually use the image in their year-end montage. All three of them will take home national awards. They’ll be interviewed, quoted, photographed. They’ll tell their story, parts of it at least. They’ll be _conocidos_. Known.

But in those moments before they’re mobbed by their teammates, James is thinking about a train car in the middle of Mexico, and sharing tamales and bottles of warm water, and waking up with a sweatshirt that wasn’t his draped over him. He’s thinking about that time when no one knew who they were, when they could have fallen off _la bestia_ or had their throats cut or simply disappeared, and no one would have ever known. He’s thinking about the crucifix tucked safely under his jersey, the scars on Philippe’s back, the nightmares Neymar still occasionally has. 

Things like that, James thinks, are things that no one else will ever know, will ever be able to know. And as _conocido_ as they are, as they’re about to become, at some level, they’ll always be _desconocidos_.


End file.
